TIME and time again we are told the NHS is letting us down.
The latest news this week is that waiting lists are rising and Trusts are failing, while experts from Cancer Research UK said just half of urgently referred patients now receive their diagnoses on time.
9
9
Which is utterly shocking.
The overburdened and underfunded NHS is potentially robbing people of a future.
But what about all those who are actually letting the NHS down — day by day, week after week?
I am talking about people missing appointments, dodging smear tests and all those women skipping mammograms.
Because when that happens the cost isn’t just personal.
Vicious circle
Delaying diagnosis means they will eventually need tougher treatments and longer hospital stays, putting a greater strain on the struggling NHS.
That means we all suffer — and it is a vicious circle.
Tragically it also means lives are needlessly lost and families are left devastated by an outcome that could have been avoided.
The reason for my anger right now is because my friend Becky has just been diagnosed with breast cancer because — thankfully — she did go for her routine mammogram.
Within days the NHS arranged a double mastectomy and tests showed the cancer had spread.
Now they are arranging chemotherapy.
Becky has two young boys and my heart broke when she said to me: “There’s no way I can die. I am a mum.”
One of her tumours is 15cm long but so flat and so deep, that no self-examination could have found it.
Without that mammogram she could have carried on as normal for years with that undetected cancer growing inside her.
Becky says she feels lucky — because that NHS mammogram means she found out as fast as she possibly could.
Which is why it seems so foolish that so many don’t take up the offer of this life-or-death service.
Just 70 per cent of women over 50 who were invited for a mammogram last year actually showed up for it.
That is nearly a third who just didn’t bother. Which is ludicrous.
In late 2023, NHS data found that nearly 30,000 women skipped screening appointment during a two-month period.
How ungrateful.
Cancer doesn’t care how fit you are, how many yoga classes you do, or whether you eat kale every day.
Jane Atkinson
Mammogram-dodging excuses vary from struggling to get an appointment to it being painful or they’re too busy.
You’d expect it from doctor- dodging men. But women?
How pathetic.
Some think they’re too healthy to bother.
But my mate is bubbly and full of life.
She is the picture of health on the outside — a woman who runs 10km, drinks matcha and relaxes with hypnotherapy and aromatherapy.
Cancer doesn’t care how fit you are, how many yoga classes you do, or whether you eat kale every day.
My friend is remaining so astonishingly upbeat, and so open about her fight on social media that she has been praised by staff at the charity Prevent Breast Cancer, who want more inspiring women to be vocal and spread the word, like Becky.
I am proud of her.
In two weeks’ time Breast Cancer Awareness Month will begin, and then we will talk about prevention and awareness.
But we should be shouting about it all year round.
We should be making sure that we actually go for the appointments we are offered.
Because how can you expect the NHS to help you if you don’t help yourself?
THOMAS BRAVE TO WEEP
9
APPRENTICE star Thomas Skinner is about to waltz on to Strictly and become a household name.
If you don’t yet know who he is, you soon will.
This market trader is a larger than life upbeat character who is known for his “Bosh!” catchphrase.
He loves showing off his passion for pints, greasy fry-ups and kebabs together with his adoration for his wife and kids.
But he showed a very different side when I interviewed him.
He admitted to me that he had betrayed his wife and feels utterly ashamed.
And he broke down in tears.
This normally jolly character sobbed as I comforted him.
There was nothing upbeat about it.
I don’t tell this story to belittle him but to actually show my admiration for him.
Because in opening up like this he has shown his army of followers that life isn’t always perfect, that people make mistakes and have struggles.
And sometimes grown men do cry – and that is nothing to be ashamed of.
NO NEED TO BE A CLONE
9
HOW short-sighted is it for an employment judge to rule that someone can’t get a job if they don’t match the “vibe” of potential new colleagues.
Russian Maia Kalina was turned down for a job because she doesn’t like to socialise in the pub, so a marketing agency said she was not the right fit for their office.
She tried to claim discrimination but a judge said a company had the right to consider whether a prospective worker would fit in.
He likened it to a small company full of Arsenal fans shoving the CV of a Spurs fan in the bin because they could scupper the office harmony.
Which seems a shame, because you don’t all have to love the same team to get along, have a laugh, have a “vibe”.
This precedent could have meant I got turned down for my first staff job on The Sun’s Bizarre desk.
The rest of the team were utterly obsessed with Oasis, bucket hats, a bit of Shaun Ryder.
Meanwhile I loved the Spice Girls and humming Aqua’s Barbie Girl from the minute I landed at my desk until I staggered out of a showbiz party in the early hours.
But they were the best bunch of people I ever worked with and we were a great team.
Sometimes, opposites can and should attract.
UNJUST JUSTICE
9
REPAIR Shop presenter Jay Blades has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape and is now languishing on bail for TWO years.
His trial won’t start until September 2027 because of the backlog in criminal cases.
If Jay is innocent like he says, that is robbing him of two years of his life, his career, his sanity.
Meanwhile if he is guilty it means his alleged victim is enduring a hideous wait for justice.
The judge told him: “It’s not a proper justice system where people are having to wait that length of time for their trial.”
No, it really isn’t.
It’s disgusting.
IF YOU’VE MARGOT IT, FLAUNT IT
9
OUCH. The claws are out for Margot Robbie, who took to the red carpet this week in a dress that barely covered her boobs, was held together by a few bejewelled skinny straps and showed off the fact that she was wearing a teeny weeny, itsy bitsy, barely there thong.
Vicious keyboard warriors were appalled. I’m not. She looks absolutely amazing.
If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
If I had a set of boobs and a pert bum like that (and if I was a Hollywood film star, with a stylist and personal trainer, who was parading down a red carpet to promote my latest movie) I would probably do exactly the same.
WHAT do you plan to do when you retire?
David Bingham’s retirement plan isn’t a bad one.
9
After ditching his forklift truck driver job he has visited every Wetherspoons in the UK and Ireland.
Probably not as healthy as playing golf . . . but definitely a lot more fun.
YOU have got to feel sorry for any woman whose business fails, the former Prime Minister’s wife Samantha Cameron included.
Her “workwear” brand Cefinn has gone to the wall. But it was a niche market.
9
9
Not because so many people now work in their gym gear at home.
But because you’ve got to have a ridiculously highly paid job to wear, for example, one of her knitted vests into the office that costs . . . £70 – IN THE SALE.
Insane.
