Has anyone had one of these?
2 questions on the letter:- Have you ever been a smoker and are you aged between 55-74.
I only answer yes to one question.
However as a child of the 1960's/70's I was surrounded by adults who smoked. Trapped in a car going on long car journeys with a smoking parent and smoke in pubs or other peoples homes were normal social habits.
There is a family photo of me aged around 8/9 months, sitting on a grandparent's knee. Everyone in the photo is smoking including granny who is happily cuddling me.
My question is - surely this means by passive smoking I have in effect smoked. Does this go any way to being offered the screening check?
I enquired about this screening at the doctors as I spent 32 years as a frontline firefighter and breathed in all sorts of muck, asbestos was a popular contaminant and various others including plastics and the chemicals from our local “nasty” places!
The only way that I become eligible is if I’m entered as a smoker! I haven’t since 18..
If you want screened then just say yes, assuming you're on the age bracket
I ve never smoked but worked in bars when smoking was permitted. I d class myself as an ex smoker.
I m actually doing my endowment options but did not tick the smoker box as I m not. I assume as the payout is greater you don't just self declare.
Any tests I d go for it, I ve done all sorts recently.
I used to smoke. Not much but enough to say Yes when we took out life insurance before sprog number one came along, at which point I quit. So when the renewal came through I put No.
About a week later there was a knock on the door one evening and it was a nurse, with the leather bag and everything. "I'm from the insurance company", she said, and produced a small bottle.
I do have an annoying cough but that appears to be dairy related, which is harder to give up than cigarettes.
Get yourself screened if they're offering it.
Mrs Lawman was offered it a few weeks ago, and had the (phone) appointment last week. It feels like its been outsourced by the NHS to a private business called Xyla Elective Care, but their comms was all done through NHS channels and email domains. Seems to be kosher and all was pretty quick and simple. The only question she couldn't truly answer was 'What do you weigh?' as we don't have any scales in the house.
I assume what happens is, you answer all the questions, get some sort of 'score' and they use that to determine whether or not to call you in for further tests - MRI or whatever.
I think the NHS are on it, especially if you are a smoker. When I was admitted with a broken pelvis, the nurse accidentally ticked 'smoker'. Lo and behold next day another nurse arrived to talk about smoking etc. I said I'd never smoked so can you correct my record. Didn't get done properly as I received a note from my GP's - I was able to get it changed then.
If you want screened then just say yes, assuming you're on the age bracket
be careful doing that incase your medical record gets updated to class you as being a smoker, at which point life insurance etc will go up !
The issue with these screens is that you go in thinking you are fine, then spend the next 2 weeks bricking yourself they'll find a life ending cancer.
I had one a year ago. Thankfully all clear but every time the phone rang and I didn't recognise the number my heart literally almost stopped.
If you want screened then just say yes, assuming you're on the age bracket
be careful doing that incase your medical record gets updated to class you as being a smoker, at which point life insurance etc will go up !
I was almost going to make the same point - why not say 'Yes' and then didn't for the reason above. The question is quite binary but if you have concerns because you have worked in smokey atmospheres etc then you might feel the truth is closer to 'yes' than 'no' even if you've never been a smoker.
That said most people of a certain age will have had similar passive smoking exposure either at work or socially (god even just walking past the school staff room as a kid - fetid) But even in that era the risk factor was still one of being a smoker rather than the fact other people around you smoke. And the question may well be so binary becuase its about you're actual statistical risk rather your concern about risk. There might not be a third answer about passive smoking because its simply not a significant enough risk factor for this kind of screening.
To give that in context - half you the people you know who smoke will die of a condition caused by the fact they smoke. Half. You can't the same about the people you know who were exposed to other people smoking 40 odd years ago. We have loads more ways to die available to us. 🙂
The proportion of Lung Cancer diagnosis amongst people who are non smokers is quite small - but its becoming an increasing proportion because the number of smokers overall has fallen quite dramatically during our lifetimes so things like genetic pre-disposition becomes more of a factor. It seems the types of lung cancers that are developed in that small proportion of non smokers aren't the same as those caused smoking so, again, smoking wouldn't be a factor in screening for them.
Certain insurances (things like mortgage protection insurance for instance) etc require you to make health declarations and maybe even access your medical history as verification of that declaration and its not ideal to have conflict between what you would declare (or have declared) in these instances and what your medical records show because you've given a false answer on the screening questionaire
Thank you for all the informative answers. No I wouldn't lie and say I smoked (which was once in the back of a cinema in the late 70's, I coughed, not even inhaling properly, said it felt foul and never touched one again :o).
My question is - surely this means by passive smoking I have in effect smoked. Does this go any way to being offered the screening check?
Looking at this another way…
The NHS is full to capacity and ££ therefore it treats people based on need. Ie do you have any symptoms that warrant the NHS making further investigation?
I have a family history of heart failure and family members not doing very well with it. I have raised risk factors, but still I couldn’t get even an echo on theNHS.
I paid privately for a CT , echo etc which i actually came back all clear, so you could have argued it saved the NHS diagnostic cost. It does however give me and family reassurance moving forward
Trouble is you don’t want to be Roy Castle ☹️
Trouble is you don’t want to be Roy Castle
I think a factor - regarding non smokers and lung cancer - is people tend not to attribute their symptoms to lung cancer (or have it attributed as a possible concern) because the don't see themselves to be at risk - and statistically the risk isn't high - meaning cases tend to be quite advanced before they are diagnosed where as smokers cancers tend to be caught earlier
Taking Roy Castle as an example - smoking was much more prevalent then - close to half the population then compared to around 10% now - and even now smokers Lung Cancers is still the most common cancer. Lung cancer cause by smoking were so prevalent that cases amongst non smokers were statistically negligible
A degree of paranoia for non smokers is healthy especially for women who make up a larger proportion of non-smoker lung cancer cases - but more in terms reporting symptoms promptly - screening is the wrong tool
Can I just add that from a GP perspective, this study is doing my head in. While they're screening for cancer, they're also picking up loads of other lung disease, and chest pain, and lumps and all sorts and it's all just "speak to your GP about that". I think I've got something like 300-350 + pats who now need some sort of consultation, probably F2F in some cases that'll involve them probably going for more tests, and input from (overworked) specialist colleagues.
It doesn't seem to have been factored into the study that all this extra workload would have to go somewhere.