‘Children with cancer face horrifying side-effects – but you can help’

One of my friends has just discovered that their niece has cancer. She hasn’t even reached double figures and she’s having to spend her summer being filled with chemotherapy to try and fight the disease. And helplessly the only practical support I can offer is for the family to take sachets of pepper to the hospital to make the NHS sandwiches more palatable. Every time I speak to a family where a child has been diagnosed with cancer I’m struck by their immense bravery. Their life has changed forever and they all unite to face the threat to their loved one.

And I’m also struck by how the families are left having to fend for themselves. Oncologists seem to think that a child’s body will recover from the harsh side effects of the treatment more than an adult will so pump them full of cancer fighting chemicals. This can lead to a child being severely weakened so they have to stay in bed for days or weeks on end, unable to have the childhood they deserve.

And while the physical side effects of the treatment are bad, the mental ones are even worse. Families are having to cope and adjust to a new reality of hospital stays instead of school plays, and their child being isolated from their friends instead of being top of the class. And how can they ensure their other children are still having a happy childhood when their sibling is so poorly?

The oncologists treating them don’t seem to appreciate that these side-effects of the disease are likely to be much harder for a family to cope with than the physical ones.

If I was the ruler of the world for the day, or even just an hour, I’d pass a law which made it illegal for any child to have cancer.

When I was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer back in 2023 I thought to myself that I’d had enough years on this planet. But for a child to have cancer in any form seems completely unjust and wrong.

Instead of being able to outlaw cancer for under-18s, the best I can do is try to make coping with the disease easier for all patients and their families – no matter how old they are.

This is why I’m leading the Daily Express’s Cancer Care campaign, to ensure that all cancer patients get access to mental health support both during and after treatment.

I started it because my medical team just doesn’t pay any attention to mental health, and sadly it seems there’s a similar picture across the country.

During my pre-treatment consultation on Monday I’ll get asked about the rash on my chest. I’ll be quizzed about how many times I’ve had diarrhoea in the past fortnight and whether I’ve been out of breath or had any falls.

But I won’t be asked about how I struggle to sleep at night because I worry that every new pain could be caused by a tumour. I won’t be asked about how I’m coping with the reality of an early death. And I won’t be asked about the guilt I’ll always feel that I didn’t act on my cancer symptoms sooner.

At the Daily Express we think this is wrong. Cancer is the worst thing that most people will ever face in their lifetime and so we think medical teams must ask about a patient’s mental health at every consultation.

This will enable doctors to help their patients by referring them to specialist support when required, or lower level help like a discussion group made up of people with the same cancer as them so they can share their experiences and not feel so alone.

At the end of last year I learned that all cancer patients are supposed to receive a holistic needs assessment when they are diagnosed, or as soon as practically possible after that date.

The assessment is a chance for a patient to discuss with someone from their medical team all their worries about cancer – from how they’ll cope with losing their hair, to money worries, and keeping their family together while it feels like their life is falling apart.

I say “supposed to receive” because since starting the campaign I’ve only managed to find one person who was given such an assessment.

This is unacceptable. Here at the Daily Express we are calling on all cancer hospitals to ensure that the patients they treat have a holistic needs assessment and then constant monitoring of their mental health by their medical teams, at their pre-treatment consultations.

To make this happen we need your help. We’ve set up a petition on the Parliament website calling for all cancer patients to have mental health support both during and after treatment.

I’m aiming to get 10,000 signatures on the petition by the end of this month so the Government has to respond. I want to hear why Labour hasn’t ensured that all cancer hospitals are supporting their patients mental health. If you do too then stand with us and sign the petition – it takes seconds.