Our Cry wolf Campaign is not about the treatment Breast Cancer patients get nor is it about the care they receive, their treatment is first class and the nurses have a real concern.

By the end of this year our breast cancer treatment will be second to none. They are going to bring the screening age down from 50 to 47 and this whole operation is called the Cancer reform strategy and will affect every cancer patient and every cancer treatment.This is what it says

“Chapter 4 of the Cancer Reform Strategy, we set out our commitment that, from the end of 2009, all patients with breast symptoms urgently referred by their GP to a specialist should be seen within 14 days, whether or not cancer is suspected.”

But if you read the new guide lines issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence  (NICE) all is not what it seems. If you are over 40 and close to the main stream it is ideal but under 30 and this is what NICE say.

“Breast cancer in women aged younger than 30 years is rare, but does occur. Benign lumps (for example, fibroadenoma) are common, however, and a policy of referring these women urgently would not be appropriate; instead, non-urgent referral should be considered. However, in women aged younger than 30 years:

• with a lump that enlarges, or
• with a lump that has other features associated with cancer (fixed and hard), or
• in whom there are other reasons for concern such as family history

an urgent referral should be made.”

Our Cry wolf Campaign is about opening the door to that treatment and care for women under the age of 30 who have breast cancer. At the moment the only person who can do that is the GP and so many of them are getting it wrong. We want  NICE to get rid of the above guide lines and treat every woman the same no matter what age they are.

If you are under 30 and go to your GP with a breast lump concern he will make a clinical Judgement and part of the judgement will be your age. He will also look at the NICE guidelines but the younger you are the more biased they are towards you not having breast cancer.

Every year about 2000 women in there twenties and thirties will get breast cancer.

  If you are a younger woman the NICE guidelines now seems to tells your GP to say "If your lump gets any bigger come back." Your GP might see 1 woman a year who has breast cancer and the chances are that woman will be over 50. If you are under 30 that clinical Judgement is no more than a guess and they are making too many bad guess and too many young women are being misdiagnosed.

Breast Cancer has never killed anyone, it the secondary cancers that do the harm, thats why our campaign is so important . We would like to see every women with a breast lump concern get it seen by a specialist and have petitioned the government,

 “ That the Government ensures that all the guess work is taking out of the initial breast cancer diagnosis and that every woman with a breast lump concern, no matter what her age will be given a mammogram or equivalent within 30 days of  seeing a Doctor.”

We now know this will never work because of the pressures it will put on the system.
      You cant always get what you want but we will be happy to get what we need. We still need to take the guess work away from our GPs and give it to someone who specializes in breast cancer.  We need a specialist nurse at every breast clinic in the country that can be approached and seen by anyone with a breast lump concern, without going to their GP irrelevant of age and without having to be referred.  If they could catch more women at the pre-cancerous stage then those women would have a better quality of life and be saved the nightmares of the treatment. They would also be saving the NHS a great deal of money.

 You can find out more at www.smallcarsbighearts.co.uk or sign our petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Crywolf/ or join our FaceBook Group.