22-04-2025
Amplify the voices of teens with cancer, says Sarah Ferguson
The founders of the charity Teenage Cancer Trust, Myrna and Adrian Whiteson, used to tell me when I started working with them 35 years ago: never forget that in the three minutes of your speech, a teenager will be diagnosed with cancer.
That statistic never left me and I often reflect on the fact that the clock never stops on the disease.
My father and stepfather both died of it and I have gone through two diagnoses. It's incredibly important to me to seek to amplify the voices and experiences of people with cancer who receive less attention, whose voices are not listened to and who can be overlooked. One group consistently neglected by those developing health plans and policies is teenagers and young adults with cancer. The impact can be devastating.
Before 1990, when the trust was established, there was no such thing as specialist cancer care for teenagers and young people. Consequently, they would find themselves receiving treatment not tailored to their age, on wards with people decades older than them, or on children's wards where they might not even fit in the bed.
I have been honorary patron since then, opening many of its units, and seen how its fundraising and campaigning has revolutionised care for young people. The units across the UK, combined with the growth of age-appropriate treatment and care, have made a significant difference to survival rates.
• Sarah Ferguson: 'a cancer diagnosis feels like a death sentence'
However, as most cases of cancer occur in people over 50, they find themselves in a system that isn't designed with young people in mind and continue to suffer huge disadvantages. The trust's #AndYoungPeople campaign aims to help change that by ensuring the government tackles three key issues in the National Cancer Plan for England. These are of equal importance in the devolved nations.
This first issue is the need for faster diagnosis. We all know how important early diagnosis is but in the 2023 National Cancer Patient Experience survey nearly half (48 per cent) of teenagers and young adults diagnosed reported that they had to see their GP three or more times before referral — the highest level of any age group.
Those patients I meet speak of being 'fobbed off' by health professionals, not being referred despite presenting multiple times with classic symptoms. The consequences can be tragic. To speed up diagnosis, the trust is calling for support and training for GPs and healthcare professionals to increase their awareness of symptoms in young people, and public health campaigns to raise awareness of the five main signs and symptoms.
The second thing that must improve is access to clinical trials. Sadly, in the UK, cancer kills more teenagers and young adults than any other disease. Many are missing out on the chance to take part in clinical trials, leaving them unable to access innovative new treatments that could increase their chances of survival.
While difficulty accessing trials impacts patients of all ages, young people are uniquely disadvantaged. This is because they are more likely to experience rare cancers or are too old to take part in paediatric trials and too young for adult trials. We must find solutions to these challenges and save more young lives.
The third area is access to mental health support. A trust survey of psychologists found that 87 per cent don't feel that national provisions meet the needs of teenagers and young people with the disease. It is our duty to help amplify their voices and ensure they are not overlooked. That is why I am supporting Teenage Cancer Trust's #AndYoungPeople campaign, why I have signed an open letter to Wes Streeting, calling for action and why I urge you to do the same.
