"This is wrong and inequitable, and it means that many young people do not receive optimum care. This could make a difference to how well they cope with cancer and its treatment, and how well they manage psychologically with the difficulties of suffering from and, in many cases, surviving a life-threatening illness," said Miss Smith.
"There are more teenagers and young people with cancer than there are children with cancer. However, services for young people are way behind paediatric services in terms of the number of specialist facilities and the education of staff within them. In the UK there are still insufficient numbers of specialist TYA facilities and therefore young people continue to be cared for inappropriately in purely paediatric or adult environments, in relatively small numbers dispersed throughout numerous services. Staff in these areas are trained to care for either children or adults, and they lack the expertise in the specialist area of TYA cancer.
"This has detrimental effects on the quality of care young people receive both in terms of staff knowledge and the fact that they are isolated from other young people of the same age going through the cancer journey."
She said that TYA cancer patients have specific needs that needed to be met by experts trained to deal with this age group.
"Throughout all stages of treatment, the adolescent patient is faced with loss of independence and control, and can experience feelings of anger, depression and social withdrawal. A lack of peer support during the cancer experience prevents the adolescent attaining a sense of belonging and identification; acceptance by friends is damaged by the cancer diagnosis and l
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Contact: Emma Mason
wordmason@mac.com
44-077-112-96986
Teenage Cancer Trust
29-Mar-2006