World Cancer Day 2024: Close the Care Gap

World Cancer Day is an international awareness campaign held annually on 4 February by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).

The theme of this year’s World Cancer Day is ‘closing the care gap’, highlighting the various barriers that individuals face in accessing cancer care. Typical barriers to cancer care can include lack of access to healthcare facilities, lack of awareness, financial difficulties and discrimination. Certain factors such as education, socio-economic groups, geographic regions, ages and ethnicities are all shown to increase an individual’s risk of developing cancer within the UK.

The factors above can affect an individual’s capability to firstly, recognise the symptoms and further, to seek care. Statistics show that more than one third of cancer cases can be prevented, with an additional third being capable of being cured if they are detected in the early stages.

This year’s World Cancer Day seeks to spread awareness of the inequalities that people face when dealing with cancer and empower individuals to take action with knowledge on prevention and treatment.

Negligence in Cancer Care

Increasing awareness, breakthroughs in medicine and funding research means that we are more capable of facing cancer than ever before. Yet clinical negligence; mainly misdiagnosis or a delay in diagnosis, can leave an individual with devastating consequences.

Healthcare professionals owe a duty of care towards you, when they fail in this duty and this causes more damage then, they have acted negligently. We are seeing increasing difficulties within the NHS due to a combination of factors such as understaffing, underfunding and the residual impact of COVID-19. These pressures and delays can lead to serious mistakes, such as failing to refer patients or missing symptoms.

If you find yourself in this situation, you should obtain legal advice. You may be entitled to claim compensation for the negligence that you have experienced.

If you or anyone you know has been affected by cancer delays or misdiagnosis, please do not hesitate to contact our experienced legal team for a free and confidential discussion on 033 0301103.

Making a claim can appear stressful, but our friendly, experienced team will assist you every step of the way.