Does the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom diagnose rare conditions? If so, does it provide treatment for them as well?
Last Updated: 17.06.2025 05:49
I was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2020. It’s a rare cancer, with only around 1,000 diagnoses in the U.K. each year. As a comparator lung cancer is diagnosed almost 50,000 times a year in the U.K. When I did eventually go to see my GP with what I thought was a troublesome haemorrhoid he recognised it immediately, I was at hospital the same afternoon to pick up prep for a colonoscopy, had the proceedure three days later followed by a biopsy and MRI scan and was diagnosed two weeks after the initial examination.
One issue with all rare diseases is the awareness of them by clinicians. My GP had never personally seen a case but remembered it from his medical training. Also for us as patients it can be hard to identify when we should seek help with a disease we have probably never even heard of.
I was treated at St Bartholomew’s and The Homerton hospitals by a consultant who is one of the leading experts in the world on anal cancer and of course did not have to pay for treatment.