Lead author Dr Oliver Kennedy, Clinical Lecturer at The University of Manchester and The Christie said was an “urgent need” to improve detection and care.<\/p>\n
He added : “We already know that people with a learning disability face poorer health outcomes, but the burden of cancer in this population is poorly understood.”<\/p>\n
Principal Investigator Prof Darren Ashcroft from The University of Manchester added people with a learning disability “frequently encounter barriers to healthcare access, such as communication difficulties and diagnostic overshadowing, where clinicians might attribute new symptoms to an existing diagnosis”.<\/p>\n
Jon Sparkes OBE, chief executive of learning disability charity Mencap, said the NHS “must do better”, adding : “It’s unacceptable that late diagnosis and lack of urgent referral for treatment is costing people with a learning disability years of life.<\/p>\n
Annabell Downey, supported is by Mencap in Hexham, Northumberland, and who has terminal cancer, said she saw her doctor “countless times” before she was diagnosed after complaining of back pain.<\/p>\n
“I struggled to convey that sometimes I’d be fine, other times I’d be curled up in agony,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Department for Health and Social care also said: “This government inherited a health system in crisis and we’re working at pace to improve cancer care, including for people with learning disabilities. <\/p>\n
“But we know there is more to be done, which is why we’ve introduced the life-saving patient safety initiative Jess’s Rule supporting GPs to catch serious conditions earlier.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lead author Dr Oliver Kennedy, Clinical Lecturer at The University of Manchester and The Christie said was an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-267462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}