Argyll News: McGrigor campaigns for better prostate cancer care ...

2,700 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in Scotland and 19,000 Scottish men are currently living with the disease.

Two men die of prostate cancer here every day. African Caribbean men are three times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men of the same age.

Jamie McGrigor MSP for the Highlands & Islands has expressed support for a national set of standards of quality prostate cancer care, saying:

?It is a sad fact that prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in Scotland, which is why I believe it?s essential we know exactly what people affected by the disease require and expect from our health service.?

Prostate cancer is the invisible and quite common killer which need not kill if it is detected in time ? and is invisible because it is a men?s disease. Society tendis to pay less attention to the ills of men, an area where the attribution of machismo to the gender acts to its disadvantage.

It is for this reason that there is a real need for the national standards of care the Prostate Cancer Charity is now campaigning to have put in place.

After a wide-ranging consultation with people affected by prostate cancer, the charity has compiled a draft set of standards that set out what good quality care looks like.? The Charity is calling on men who have been affected by prostate cancer and their partners, as well as healthcare professionals, to provide feedback on the draft to ensure it accurately reflects the needs of men.

Once finalised, the charity will be asking the Scottish Government to implement the standards across the country, to ensure that men will have the same expectations of care wherever they live.

Jamie McGrigor, photographed above campaigning with Owen Sharp CEO of the Prostate Cancer Charity, says:

?I am delighted to join colleagues in backing calls for national standards of care and would urge anyone with direct or indirect experience of the disease to feed back on The Prostate Cancer Charity?s draft document. Men everywhere, including across my region of the Highlands & Islands, deserve quality prostate cancer care, and delivering that is what this initiative is all about..

Owen Sharp says: ?It?s fantastic that Jamie McGrigor has backed our call and look I forward working with him over the months ahead to make this a reality.

?We need national standards of quality prostate cancer care to ensure that healthcare providers and NHS staff know exactly what services and level of care they should be providing to patients. We also need to ensure that men who have, or are concerned about, prostate cancer know exactly what level of care and support they are entitled to receive.

?Before we finalise our standards we need to be absolutely clear that they reflect what men with prostate cancer want ? which is why we want to hear from as many people with experience of the disease as possible.?

The?draft standards of quality prostate cancer care developed by the charity are available here on the charity?s website; and feed back responses can be made online here as well.

Source: http://forargyll.com/2012/03/mcgrigor-campaigns-for-better-prostate-cancer-care/

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