One day, three good women and five things you need to get checked out

The subject of Breast Cancer is one which is close to my heart, having seen both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law die from the disease. It saddens me that Anna never had the chance to get to know these wonderful women. Her granny died long before she was born and her aunt died when she was just 2 and a half.

We've learnt much in the intervening years that might have saved their lives, both in recognition of the symptoms and in treatment. That's thanks to the work that organisations like Breakthrough Breast Cancer do.

Last Thursday evening, Breakthrough Scotland held their annual reception at Holyrood, filling the Garden Lobby with people whose lives had all been in some way touched by the fight against this disease. There were many who had been through it and come out the other side, others who were still going through that journey.

Three good women

So, this is where the three good women come in. I might have my disagreements politically with Jackie Baillie, but she's a good egg and takes the issues around Breast Cancer seriously. She was on the panel at the hustings Breakthrough held ahead of the Holyrood election last year, where all the panellists showed us the best in politicans. She hosted the event and paid tribute to Breakthrough's work.

Next up was a lovely lady from the Borders called Elizabeth. She was making her first ever public speech and she did an amazing job. She told how the first years of this decade had been really hard for her, how she'd lost her much loved family dog and then her husband. She'd thought that the one thing she would never be able to cope with was a Cancer diagnosis. Sadly, she had to face that. She told how she hadn't realised that pain could be a sign of breast cancer until she mentioned it to a friend at work. That wise friend told her to get it checked out and it turned out it was indeed Breast Cancer. She wanted people to know that pain can be a sign that all is not well and you need to get it checked.

Elizabeth shared how the kindness of a nurse helped her in the moments before her surgery. She realised she'd left her picture of her husband on the ward. She ran off to get it and put it in Elizabeth's hand as she fell asleep and when she woke up it was there, too. That was an immeasurably comforting thing to Elizabeth. It's great we have such lovely nurses and we should appreciate them.

The final speaker was Breakthrough Scotland's remarkable and inspirational director Audrey Birt. She's suffered from Breast Cancer herself and writes about her experiences in her moving and honest blog.

 Audrey is the driving force behind the great things the organisation has achieved in the past few years. She has a super team of people, too. They're engaging with lawmakers and government, campaigning, facilitating research and providing expert help and support to women across the country. It stands to reason that the earlier cancer is diagnosed, the easier it is to get rid of. That's where the TLC (Touch, Look, Check campaign comes in. You can get your free guide here.

Five things you need to get checked out

We all know that if we get a lump in our breast we get to our GPs, but the presence of four other symptoms MAY indicate that all is not well. I've written a lot about how I object to putting breasts on Page 3 of a national newspaper for the titillation of men. However, when they appear as part of a groundbreaking ad campaign by the Government aimed at saving lives, it's absolutely fine. Elaine C Smith produced this excellent and informative video.



Controversial? Maybe. Lifesaving? Almost certainly. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, spread the word of these five things - lumps, skin like orange peel, change in shape or direction of nipple, discharge from the nipple or rash/crusting.

One day

Is the name of Breakthrough's latest fundraising campaign. Watch this video. I've seen it countless times and it has me bawling every single time.

Breakthrough funds Scotland's only dedicated breast cancer research centre. This costs £2,200 per day. Can you help them do that?

Former MP John Barrett speaks out against ESA assessments for Cancer patients

Regular readers will be aware of mine and George Potter's campaign against the Government's proposals to put Cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy through work capability assessments.

At the moment, if you have Cancer and are undergoing IV chemo, you don't have to undergo the assessments, but if you're on oral chemo, you do. Macmillan Cancer Support and others highlighted this discrepancy and the Government decided to make the system the same for both groups. Unfortunately, they've done it the wrong way round. Instead of extending the exemption to the people on oral chemo, they've taken it away from those on iv chemo.

Now, both types of treatment are pretty hardcore. Cancer cells respond only to the most heavy duty of toxins. Anyone undergoing chemo is unlikely to be able to work while they're having the treatment because of the nasty, debilitating, dramatic side effects which can range from ulcers to vomiting to exhaustion and just about everything in between.

Just after I launched the petition, John Barrett, our former MP for Edinburgh West contacted me and said that he supported what we were trying to do and said he was happy for us tell that to the world, or at least the small part of it which reads our blogs.

Many of us in Scotland knew at the time that John had just undergone surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his colon and was waiting to hear whether he'd have to undergo chemotherapy himself. It turns out that he does and will be starting this next month. Two weeks ago, he told the Scotsman about what he'd been through and how he wanted to tell everyone to use the NHS bowel cancer screening kit and not leave it gathering dust.

John has now told the Edinburgh Evening News that he wants the Government to rethink its plans for ESA. After objections from Macmillan, they were already undertaking a further consultation which will hopefully lead to them issuing an automatic exemption to everyone while they are undergoing treatment for Cancer.

He said:

“I’m speaking to my former parliamentary colleagues to say when this comes up they need to stop it.

“Macmillan are the experts. We should listen to what they and other charities are saying.”

I was not encouraged by the response from the DWP spokeswoman, however. She said:

“However, we do believe that assuming work is not an option for all cancer sufferers is not the right way ahead.”

Let's be realistic here. Cancer sufferers in the middle of treatment are unlikely to be able to work. They have enough to do dealing with the effects of the treatment. A medical certificate from a GP saying they're undergoing Chemo or Radiotherapy at the moment is all that should be needed for them to claim ESA. Once that treatment has finished, then, ok, resume the normal assessment system, but for goodness sake leave them alone while the toxins are doing their thing.

It bothers me that failure to return an ATOS form on time could mean that people lose their benefits. If that deadline falls at the wrong time in the treatment cycle and someone's too ill to complete the form, they will get a nasty shock next benefit day and they shouldn't have to go through that stress, and the stress of having to sort it all out, when they are so sick.

We also know that ATOS make mistakes. There's every possibility that they could decide that someone in the midst of chemo is fit for work and make them lose their benefit. Appealing that takes a long time and is also very stressful - not to mention they'll be expected to show evidence of job hunting if they're put back onto Job Seekers' Allowance or lose their benefit completely.

Asking for an exemption is not about writing people off forever, it's about recognising the debilitating effects of Cancer treatment while it's happening. Hopefully most people, once their treatment is over, will be fit enough to resume work and get on with their lives. If you agree with us that Cancer patients undergoing Chemo or Radiotherapy should be automatically exempt from these extra assessments, please sign our petition here and if you're a Lib Dem member, write to Party President Tim Farron (tim.farron@libdems.org.uk) and tell him how you feel. I know he's already looking into this, but I want him to be able to go to Nick Clegg and say he's had thousands of e-mails from party members who want us to stop the Government's proposals.

 Can you do that today, please? Also please spread the word as widely as you can. I'm hoping that this should be winnable because there is literally no sense in wasting time and energy putting people through assessments when they're clearly too ill to work by the very nature of what's happening to them. It's the right thing to do.

Let's make sure Government doesn't put Cancer patients through stressful benefit assessments

Saturday nights at this time of year are usually pretty predictable - Strictly, X Factor, I'm a Celebrity, punctuated by the occasional glass of red wine. Last night the annual Race of Champions was also added into the mix and I watched excitedly as Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel claimed their fifth Nations Cup in succession for Germany.

While idly going through Facebook to see how my friends were doing, I came back down to earth with a sudden bump when I read this from Macmillan Cancer Support.

Now, I knew there had been issues with people recovering from Cancer being marked as fit for work with the iniquitous Work Capability Assessment. That was bad enough. I had rather naively assumed that those in active treatment would be spared such things. No, those taking oral chemotherapy or radiation could be assessed at any time. Those on intravenous chemotherapy were exempt. Macmillan and other organisations presented evidence to the Government that oral chemo and radiotherapy could be every bit as horrendous as iv chemo in the hope that the exemption would be extended to them.

Well, it appears that the Government have accepted that there must be equality in how the groups are treated, so both groups will be subjected to the assessment.

Most of us will know somebody who has been through Cancer treatment. It's pretty hardcore. With chemo, your body is assaulted with assorted heavy duty poisons at the maximum possible dose. It doesn't just find the Cancer cells and kill them, it damages everything else in its path and for most of the time you feel pretty bloody awful. There may, if you're lucky, be a few days in the cycle between treatments where you feel almost human, but as the treatment continues and the toxins in your body build up, this becomes less likely. In fact, how many times have you heard that someone's too sick to even get their next dose of chemo - they haven't recovered properly from the last one and it has to be postponed. The side effects of most Cancer treatments are deeply unpleasant, often dramatic and they take up every ounce of your energy.  The last thing you need is having to fight bureaucracy from the Department of Work and Pensions on pain of losing your benefits.

You have to submit medical certs every few weeks to claim ESA anyway. It is pretty simple to automatically put anyone whose certificate says "Cancer - continuing treatment" into the support group so that they are pretty much left alone and not hassled. That would be the obvious way to deal with this. But, no. Rather than extend the exemption to those on oral chemos etc, the Government is removing it from those on iv Chemo? That is so, so cruel. You miss a deadline cos you're too busy throwing up or sleeping and you end up losing your benefits. And when that happens, it can take a wee while to sort it all out. How do you feed yourself or heat your house in that circumstance. And if you lose your income based ESA, you end up losing Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and the like and it shouldn't, but you then have to deal with the Council as well as the DWP to sort it all out. And all the while your next chemo appointment beckons.

Now, the Government says, in its proposals that more people will end up in the support group.

That's as may be, but they'll be forced to get extra evidence and fill in extra forms when there is just no need. Not everyone has a family who can do all that for them. People literally fighting to stay alive should not be put through this.

While the Government's intention may be to put more in the support group, the method of getting them there is deeply flawed, cruel and a waste of time.

There will be a consultation starting this month so that they can think again. I think we need to concentrate the minds of Liberal Democrat ministers particularly and get them to use their influence to ensure that Cancer patients in active treatment are exempted from the rather icy and inaccurate grip of ATOS and their flawed Work Capability Assessments. We just can't have people struggling with brutal therapies put through them.

Last night young Mr Potter and I cooked up this petition asking the Government to withdraw its proposals and make sure that anyone going through this treatment should be exempted as a matter of course. Please circulate widely. Without much effort, it's already attracted a fair number of signatures - but please do what you can to draw attention to it and sign it yourself.

 I want our ministers to be absolutely sure that Liberal Democrat members in particular will not tolerate anything less than full exemption for Cancer patients going through treatment. The quick way to do that is for us all to write to Tim Farron, our Party President at tim.farron@libdems.org.uk.  He does take contact from members very seriously. You could tweet him as well @timfarron. He will take our concerns to our ministers quickly. Also get in touch with Jenny Willott MP (info@jennywillott.org.uk).

The Government has at least stopped what it was planning to do for the moment - so we mustn't miss this opportunity to push them in the right direction.

Politicians show their good side at Breakthrough Breast Cancer debate

On Wednesday evening, Breakthrough Breast Cancer held a pre-election hustings on Women's Health in a Recession at the Scottish Storytelling Theatre in Edinburgh. Six politicians gathered to discuss issues from cancer treatment and detection to increasing breastfeeding rates. The photo shows the panel, from left to right:

Jackie Baillie (Labour), Ross Finnie (Liberal Democrat), Alison Johnstone (Greens), Audrey Birt, Director Breakthrough, Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Nanette Milne (Conservative) and Margo MacDonald (Independent).

Beforehand, we'd chatted over coffee outside. I was blethering with Ross Finnie. He'd spent the whole weekend at Conference darkly warning that if he made any pledges that cost money, Jeremy Purvis would appear in a puff of smoke and tell him off. I told Ross that I was there as Jeremy's spy and would tell on him. You could tell he was petrified at the thought. Nicola Sturgeon then appeared and Ross introduced us. She said "Ah, are you Twitter Caron?".  We had a very enjoyable chat about Twitter. She said she really enjoys it - and you can actually tell. She's one of those politicians that get it's about a conversation not a broadcast. Later on, she said it was quite disconcerting to be answering a question in someone who was tweeting the answer as she said it. I guess someone is taking down her every word as she utters it in the Parliament, though, so it's not so different.

An amusing aside was that so many people, including Nicola and Jackie Baillie, had trouble getting hot water out of the flasks. I'd taken the coward's way out and gone for the coffee, which was much easier to operate.

We were told the Twitter hashtag at the start of the meeting, which made me think that there would be lots of people voraciously tweeting. When I checked out our little corner of the Twitterverse later, I discovered, to my slight embarrassment, that it was in fact just me. Twitter works best when there's more than one perspective on it and with the best will in the world, there's no way I could capture everything, and you tend to hear things that you are interested in more clearly. However, out of 34 tweets, only 2 of them could be construed in any way as party political and I did try to capture the best of everybody.

With just an hour, and six panellists, there was only time for 3 questions, which were discussed in some depth. First, though, each gave a 90 second summary of how their policies would impact on women's health in a recession

Jackie talked about the need for flexible childcare and a living wage, along with a 2 week cancer guarantee treatment time and the need for preventing rather than curing.

Ross spoke of need for early diagnosis and treatment and, not surprisingly for a Liberal Democrat, emphasised the need for services in the community, as close to people as possible.  He also spoke out opposing what had been said by the Scottish Breast Cancer Campaign, reported here in the Herald, about the breast screening programme. The SBCC thinks that women who don't necessarily need treatment are offered it when pre-cancerous cells, which may not necessarily develop into active disease, are detected in routine mammograms. Ross said that he could not countenance any diminution of the screening. There was a slight frisson of controversy when the SBCC Director later asked a question although she made it clear that that wasn't the time and place to have that discussion, but she'd be happy to talk to Ross at a different time. Maybe the untimely deaths of two close family members to this disease has coloured my opinion, but I just wonder if earlier diagnosis and treatment might have meant that Anna would still have a paternal grandmother and aunt to enrich her life. I lean towards Ross on this one.

Alison talked about the need for a holistic approach to health and in particular greater understanding of the environmental impact of chemicals we use in our daily lives as a matter of routine.

Nicola said that the SNP would protect the NHS budget, and would introduce a living wage and spoke of the need for much more to be done on lifestyle issues, particularly alcohol. I thought there might have been a bit more of a discussion on minimum pricing later on, but it wasn't mentioned again.

Nanette said the Tories would implement greater screening for those aged 40-74, £20 million for more health visitors and a Cancer Drugs fund.

Margo said she tended to agree with Alison's holistic approach and, although I can't remember the exact context, said Ross Finnie was a sweetie. He blushed.

As Jackie and Nicola both mentioned the living wage, it's worth adding in here that the raising of the tax threshold for those on low and middle incomes does much the same thing - and that will hopefully get to £10,000 by the end of the Parliament. That is a real achievement of the Liberal Democrats in the Westminster Government and it also applies to everyone, including pensioners, not just public sector workers.

The first real question was around how do we make sure that women look after their own health during austere times when they are more likely to be stretched looking after everyone else and probably suffering most from the effects of poverty. Everyone agreed about the need to make sure more women went for screening, picking up more Cancers and saving lives. Nicola said that getting treatment quickly was important, but that too many people are diagnosed too late to have any sort of a cure, so getting people educated about signs to watch out for, tailoring the message to different audiences, was really important.

The only real disagreement on the panellists was on the question of the idea of a Cancer Drugs Fund. The Tories were well in favour, saying that it was wrong to do things differently from the rest of the UK. Ross Finnie for the Liberal Democrats was equally adamantly opposed, saying that it was intellectually incoherent to undermine the Scottish Medicines Consortium. He said that if things needed changing, then the way to do it was to change the SMC's operating criteria. The others were various shades of maybe - Nicola talked
about the possibility of exceptional prescribing, and also said the issue raised ethical questions the bitggest of which was why just Cancer drugs? She said her postbag contained requests for Alzheimers drugs among other conditions & that more people were cured by methods other than drugs. Jackie Baillie said that she felt that the Jury was still out, as did Alison Johnstone. Margo was quite stark and realistic - saying that when resources were limited, we had to make hard choices about our priorities and that can be quite difficult to face up to.

Then it was my turn to ask a question. Regular readers here will know my interest in breastfeeding as a former breastfeeding counsellor. When I start to talk on this subject, donkeys across the land fear for their hind legs. I asked simply "What's your big idea to improve breastfeeding rates?" I will write a longer post analysing their replies and adding a few of my own ideas, but I'll just say here that I was impressed with the different perspectives each brought to the debate. Margo was down to earth and hilarious, talking about how she was something of a novelty in her Lanarkshire maternity hospital, being one of the rare breastfeeding mums and was often seen by visitors with nursing baby in one hand and cigarette in the other. Nanette spoke of difficulties arising because of mums being discharged from hospital mostly just hours after giving birth. Nicola talked about cultural barriers, and how important it was to make sure that people didn't feel lectured at or guilty for the choices they made. For Alison the key was better information and support, a point taken further by Jackie who spoke of the value of ordinary women supporting other ordinary women, without medicalising it, without uniforms. Ross, as the only man on the panel, spoke of the barriers put in the way by men and the need to tackle them. Both Jackie and Ross paid tribute to Elaine Smith who introduced the law which protects women who want to feed their babies in public places.  I remember it taking quite some doing to get the Government to support the Bill when it was brought in, and I'm glad everyone's now singing from the same hymn sheet.

There was then the opportunity for the audience to make some brief points before closing statements. Many people talked about lymphoedema. Margo talked about the importance of teaching massage techniques to carers and people who have the condition and Alison, who is an athletics coach said there were sports massage techniques which could help. Jackie said that when times were tough, people expected politicians to work together. If the panel can just get that through to Iain Gray and Alex Salmond, that'd be fabulous.

And look who I caught up with for a photo.

You don't often come out of a political debate in the run up to an election feeling all warm and fuzzy, that you've learned something and that the politicians are all totally engaged and interested, but this was an exception. Of course there are some major caveats - if they can't behave themselves at a cancer charity hustings, there really is no hope. I'm also sure that the fact that there were so many women, not just in the panel but in the room, had something to do with the civilised atmosphere. And most importantly, there was an unusually high level of consensus because there was no discussion of the really controversial issues. Free prescriptions weren't even mentioned, for example. However, all of the politicians came across extremely well, and Breakthrough's key messages were well discussed. A win win for everyone, I'd say.

You can judge for yourself with this short video Breakthrough have put up on their Facebook page.