King will save thousands of lives with cancer message, says friend

Veteran broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby says the King's plea to the nation to get screened for cancer 'will save lives'.

Mr Dimbleby, 81, a long-time friend of King Charles, said his 'unique message for a monarch' would help to make people less frightened of getting checked out and seeking treatment and that among all his vital work there was 'no more powerful message' that he had to deliver.

By appealing to the estimated nine million people who have not taken up the chance to take part in screening programmes for conditions like breast, bowel and cervical cancer, Mr Dimbleby forecast that the King would ensure that 'many thousands who would have died because of the delay of not doing it will now go forward, see whether they are allowed or able to have treatment and those lives will be saved.'

And referring to the previous one thousand per cent surge in people going to the NHS website for advice after Charles' original admission that 'he was having treatment for what was mercifully a benign prostate enlargement', Mr Dimbleby said:

'It demonstrates, I think, the unique role of the sovereign. No-one else could have done this. It was unrivalled.'

'By doing this, he will have helped guarantee along with all those other terrific people who have spoken about their cancers – and it's not an easy thing to do – to come out and say publicly that 'I just want you to know I have this or that cancer'. 

It takes guts and the fact King Charles came out and said that will save lives.

'People will be less frightened of saying 'we must go and get a test' and 'we must see if a test is available to us'. It really matters.'

The legendary journalist also said the impact of Charles's openness about his cancer was a 'massive riposte to cynics and those who sneer and say 'oh, kings just open fetes and garden parties and cut ribbons and go in coaches and carriages'.'

His comments came in the wake of the King's message to the nation on Friday night in which he revealed his own cancer treatment was being scaled back and urged people to take up offers of cancer screening, saying 'early diagnosis quite simply saves lives'.

In his announcement broadcast as part of Channel 4's annual Stand up to Cancer Campaign, King Charles emphasised the critical importance of taking part in national screening programmes.

'Thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to doctors' orders, my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the New Year,' he said.

'This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care in recent years, testimony that I hope will give encouragement to the fifty per cent of us who will be diagnosed with the illness at some point in our lives.'

Speaking to the BBC today, Mr Dimbleby, whose landmark 1994 interview with King Charles about his role 'Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role' first saw the then Prince of Wales talk about his unhappy marriage to the late Princess Diana and his love for Camilla, now his wife and the Queen, welcomed the news that the King's treatment can now continue at a slower rate – 'it will make a huge number of people on personal grounds delighted that that is the case' - and said Charles' decision as a monarch to be so open was 'unique and quite extraordinary and it has great impact'.

Mr Dimbleby said: 'The impact that he can have gives great reassurance to people. It makes you recognise that actually cancer is not a death sentence.'

He also recalled how times had changed since his own father, the renowned broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, had died at the age of just 52 in an era when having cancer was barely talked about.

'When my father died 60 years ago this month –he had been frightened to say in advance to himself even that he had cancer.

'He knew he had it but before he died through my brother David he announced that he had been working and living with cancer for five years. 

'It had a phenomenal instant effect because the word cancer was hardly usable then. My father was so young – people think he was old because he had that gravitas.'

He told Radio 4's Today programme: 'We have come a long way but where we are now is that the King is able to say in those very warm, gentle, thoughtful, kind terms 'I have this cancer. I am living with this cancer and I am continuing my very busy schedule all this time and now mercifully for me and also my schedulers I can have less time spent obeying doctors' orders'.'

Mr Dimbleby also praised the vital work carried out by the King at home and overseas which he has carried on during his treatment including his recent visit to Rome to pray with the Pope 'as Supreme Governor of the Church of England' followed by unveiling a memorial at the National Arboretum to the LGBTQ veterans 'who had been until 2000 denied their right to be gay' and his appearance at COP25.

'These are big things and they matter. I say 'here are a few examples of what the King does and there is no more powerful example than this, I think',' he said.

The King has not revealed which particular cancer he has because he wants his diagnosis to resonate with all cancer patients, Buckingham Palace have said.

Meanwhile, pre-eminent cancer specialist Professor Pat Price, consultant oncologist and visiting fellow at Imperial College in London, told the BBC today that early detection of cancer was vital.

'Treating it early means that we can treat it before it has spread. If you can get rid of the cancer before it has spread, you are cured one hundred per cent and – even better – if you can get it before it is cancer – and it is pre-cancerous – and that's a lot of our screening programmes.

'If we haven't got a screening programme, we have to wait for symptoms to arise and obviously if you have a cough you might have a chest X ray etc but, obviously, if there are any delays – if it is late anyway – then that is when it might have spread and some cancers are a bit nasty like that and then that's a problem. 

'Once they have spread then that is when the real trouble starts.'

Professor Price also warned that people had to 'change their lifestyles and become more healthy' with one in four cancers caused by lifestyle and 'obesity a big problem'.

She also said that while cancer diagnosis and treatment was a 'priority within the health service', the NHS 'was still not getting the basics right so we have to concentrate on that as well'.