“CANCER is a big scary word,” Dame Deborah James said just over a year before she died.
“But the earlier it’s caught the better your chance of survival.”
It was a message the 40-year-old repeated time and again in her Sun column, on her BBC podcast and Instagram — as she fiercely campaigned to raise awareness of the disease that would cut her life short.
And today, her family is “proud” to continue what she started — urging all political parties to commit to a long-term strategy to “drive earlier diagnosis and reduce inequalities in access to treatment and care”.
Debs’ husband Sebastien Bowen, parents Alistair and Heather James and siblings Ben James and Sarah Wieczorek have joined forces with Cancer Research UK to call for a re-doubling of efforts to recruit more NHS staff and invest in diagnostic equipment.
Dame Debs died in June 2022, five and a half years after she was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer.
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The mum to Hugo, 16, and Eloise, 14, was a tireless campaigner — banging the drum for all cancer patients, urging people to “check your poo” while spreading her message of holding on to “rebellious hope”.
Dad Alistair, tells Sun Health: “Deborah would wholeheartedly back this urgent call to politicians, she would have led the charge on behalf of all cancer patients.
“She was a passionate advocate of early diagnosis and today we are continuing the work she started.
“Driving earlier diagnosis must be a key part of this to ensure everyone has access to the care they need.”
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The 68-year-old said his own cancer scare eight years ago is an example of the difference it makes when it is caught early.
“I had a mole on my neck, Heather spotted it didn’t look right and moaned at me to get it checked,” he says.
“My doctor took one look and said, ‘I know what it is, and you know what it is, but I can’t tell you that’.
“I was referred and had a biopsy which showed it was stage one melanoma.
“Within six weeks I had it removed and was given the all-clear.
“It just shows what happens when you catch these things early.
“Deborah wasn’t so lucky, there were several missed opportunities to diagnose her earlier.
“By the time they caught her cancer, it was found to be stage four.”
Driven by a burning desire to stop “future Deborahs” facing her fate, Debs spent the last seven weeks of her life raising £7million for her Bowelbabe Fund, which now stands at more than £12million.
So far £10million has been awarded to various projects close to her heart, including £5million to fund a global five-year study that aims to define the risk factors for bowel cancer in the under-50s — amid a worrying surge in cases in the young.
Among those involved in the study as a patient advocate is Dr Anisha Patel, whose story bears a striking resemblance to that of her friend Dame Debs — both were fit and healthy.
The Sun’s No Time 2 Lose campaign
The UK currently has three cancer screening programmes on the NHS, to detect bowel, cervical and breast cancers.
But, for years, Brits were been subjected to a postcode lottery when it comes to bowel cancer screening.
In Scotland, screening starts at the age of 50.
Yet, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland people had to wait until their 60th birthdays to be invited to take the life-saving tests.
That’s why, in April 2018, The Sun launched the No Time 2 Lose campaign – spearheaded by the late Dame Deborah James – calling on the Government to lower the screening age to 50, a move which could save an estimated 4,500 lives annually.
In the summer of 2018, health secretary Matt Hancock announced screening in England would be lowered to 50 – marking a victory for The Sun and campaigners.
In April 2021, NHS England began to reduce the age range starting with those aged 56 gradually.
The rollout will be phased over four years to include people aged 50-59.
In Wales you are invited if you’re aged between 55 and 74, and in Northern Ireland people still have to wait until 60 to receive an invite.
Each of the bowel cancer screening programmes in the UK use home tests called faecal immunochemical test (FIT).
The mum-of-two’s diagnosis came two years after Deborah’s in 2018 after symptoms including fatigue, constipation and blood in her poo “crept up” on her over six months.
It is fair to say it blindsided the TV doctor, known by her Instagram handle @doctorsgetcancertoo, not least because her doctor husband treats bowel cancer.
“It was a shock for both of us because I don’t look like the stereotypical person to get bowel cancer,” says the 39-year-old.
“I exercised, I ate well, I was a vegetarian growing up, I didn’t have any family history, I don’t smoke and I wasn’t overweight.”
Dr Anisha, author of new book Everything You Hoped You’d Never Need To Know About Bowel Cancer, adds: “I thought it was piles that had reared its head again because I’d had them after childbirth.
“My symptoms started to get worse.
“I felt like I needed to go urgently multiple times, and it felt like I wasn’t emptying properly.
‘Ripple effect is so huge’
“When I went on holiday to Italy, I looked like I was losing weight looking back at pictures.
“I felt really bad fatigue, I was having explosive stools — now it was diarrhoea — and lots more blood.”
Her stools had also been ribbon-like — an indication of a tumour in the rectum.
On her return to the UK, Dr Anisha’s GP referred her on a cancer pathway, which led to a stage three rectal cancer diagnosis.
She had two major surgeries and a temporary stoma, plus three months of chemotherapy, finishing treatment in 2019.
But she has been left with several side effects, including early menopause, neuropathy, PTSD and altered bowel function.
She says: “I go up to 15 times a day and I’m still trying to do a job and manage my children.
“The ripple effect of cancer is so huge, I don’t think people appreciate that.”
Every year, around 42,800 people are told they have bowel cancer in the UK — it is now the third most-common cancer, overtaking lung for the first time in 2021.
But, CRUK warns that the number could rise by 5,000 a year by 2040 if “current trends continue”.
Steve Browne, 57, a surveyor from North London, counts himself “lucky” to have had his bowel cancer diagnosed at stage one, despite brushing aside symptoms — including blood in his stools, loss of appetite and stomach cramps — for seven months.
The dad-of-three was diagnosed at the age of 45, in 2012.
He says: “The term bowel cancer never crossed my mind.
“I thought it would be sore abs from working out too much, or perhaps piles.
“My wife encouraged me to go to the doctor.”
Steve, married to Shelley, 52, had a six-hour keyhole operation to remove the cancer and six inches of his bowel.
He says: “When I was told I had bowel cancer, it was like I had an out-of-body experience.
“I was in a state of denial.
“I was fit and healthy, I was the first in my family to get cancer.
“When they said they needed to remove it ASAP, I said I was busy at work and could I delay the operation for a few weeks, but the doctor said, ‘If I were you, I’d get it out straight away’.”
After the operation, Steve remembers his children, aged 12, ten and six at the time, visiting the hospital.
He explains: “They all started crying and it really brought it home for them, that Daddy is ill.”
Steve has been cancer-free for 12 years but hopes to break stigmas around the disease.
He says: “I’m from the black community, and we still need to talk about this openly, whether it’s men or different cultures.
“We have to be comfortable with the word ‘cancer’ because it’s still a word that scares people, so they don’t do anything about it.
“It’s no longer a death sentence with advances in technology.
“Afterwards, you can get on with your life.
“If there’s one message I want to get out there, it’s do not ignore symptoms.
“I say to family and friends — don’t let your ego or masculinity kill you.”
Dr Anisha adds: “We need to encourage people to stop feeling worry, shame, fear and stigma, just as Deborah did.
“She paved the way for us to trample all over that, and we need to keep having those conversations on her behalf.”
There is no doubting the impact Deborah had.
‘Don’t let your ego kill you’
In the weeks and months after she died the NHS saw a huge surge in people getting checked for the disease.
But a lack of staff and resources to perform vital tests to detect bowel cancer means people with suspected symptoms are waiting too long to be seen, CRUK warns.
Stark figures show that while NHS England requires 75 per cent of patients urgently referred are diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days — the target has yet to be met for gastrointestinal cancers, including bowel.
Had that target been achieved, the latest figures suggest that in February alone around 3,800 people would have found out they had cancer on time.
If bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine in ten people will survive for five years or more.
This plummets to just one in ten when the disease is caught at the latest stage, as Deborah’s was.
That’s why her family are calling on all parties and their leaders to put cancer patients at the heart of their manifestos.
Their letter adds: “We are calling on all political parties to make the upcoming general election a landmark moment . . . helping to give more people affected by cancer more time with the people they love.”
CRUK’s chief executive, Michelle Mitchell, echoed the family’s heartfelt plea, saying: “Right now, people affected by cancer are not getting the care they need and deserve.
“We urgently need more staff and equipment for the NHS, alongside a reform of cancer services.
“With cancer cases set to rise, we need assurance that cancer is a priority for the UK Government.
“That’s why we are urging all political parties to commit to publishing a strategy within one year of the general election.”
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Were Dame Debs still here to put pressure on the Government herself, no doubt she would repeat what she said in that TV appearance to mark Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in April 2021.
In her unique, effective way, she simply said: “Unfortunately my cancer was caught at a later stage, I don’t want that to happen to anybody else.”
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Vanessa Chalmers
