Below are some highlights from our conversations with people. A whole range of views and opinions …
Delay to avoid bad news / fatalistic perception:
“I don’t go to the doctor’s often, I used to but every time I go now I finish up in hospital”
“You’ve got to die with something at the end of the day. And if it isn’t cancer it’ll be something else.”
“I was scared of what the diagnosis might be. It got to the stage where something had to be done and I plucked up the courage and went.”
Accessing Services:
“Making an appointment is awkward when you’re self employed you can’t lose time”
“And then you phone up the doc to say you’ve got a chest infection and a cough say and you can’t get an appointment for 2 weeks you think oh well, it’ll go away.”
“I think the biggest obstacle is if you got a pinickety receptionist then sometimes you feel like it was a real battle to get past.”
“Its hard for me to get to the doctors, it’s a bus ride and a walk up the hill. I’ve got arthritis in my knees and so we get a taxi. £5 they charge me! I should go tomorrow but I’ve put it off.”
Wasting time / resource:
“You’re told persistently, don’t bother the doctor with a cough.”
“I didn’t go for a couple of months as I was thinking it will go away and that I would be wasting everybody’s time”
Relationship with Doctor:
“You don’t want to go to the docs and show your bits really”
“I don’t feel like I’ve got a relationship with the doc. I’ve only just started at the surgery. I’ve been 3 times and seen 3 diff docs.”
“I have no faith in my doctor”
“Going to see my doctor is like going to see a friend”
The differences between men and women:
“Boys keep it all inside whereas girls talk”
“Breast cancer is a thing that women talk about”
“As far as men are concerned they don’t do enough. The ladies have breast screening but there’s nothing for men.”
“It’s also a manly thing, men are never ill, the old huntsman image: we go out and do the work.”
“He won’t go to the doctors, I have to make him go.”
Indifference:
“When it comes to cancer I don’t think people really think much about it.”
“If a leaflet about cancer came through the door I’d rip it up because if you haven’t got it then you’re not going to read about it”
“I suppose health is pretty low on most people’s priorities because they’ve got it. It’s only when you lose it or something happens that you look around you and investigate”
Good awareness of breast cancer symptoms, poor awareness of lung cancer symptoms:
“With breast there’s so much info that there shouldn’t be anyone that can say, oh I didn’t know that.”
“What are the symptoms with lung cancer? I just don’t know.”
Ideas and solutions:
“I think the information should come from a person who’s had it, and survived it.”
“It was through talking to someone who’d had something done that she realised.”
“No good burying your head in the sand and saying it’ll go away. There are things that don’t go away.”
