War on Cancer
Cancer and the workplace
Dr Fiona Adshead - Chief Wellbeing & Public Health Officer, Bupa
Stuart Fletcher, our Chief Exec, was talking about Bupa’s role in the workplace around cancer. We’re really passionate that the workplace is seen as a place where people can improve their health, whether it’s prevention, treatment or also access to care. So Stuart was really giving a call to action to ensure that employers take cancer treatment and prevention seriously.
Why is cancer an important issue for business?
Cancer is a really important issue for business because one in three people with cancer don’t actually return to work which means that there’s a huge economic impact. It’s been estimated in the United States that about $8.3 trillion in productivity is lost which is obviously very large. We’re interested to see how we can mitigate both the human impact with people but also for businesses and the economy in the broader sense.
What about the work you are doing with UICC?
We believe that we can only tackle workplace health and cancer in partnership. So we’ve got a global partnership with the International Union for Cancer Control and we’ve worked with them to produce a number of guides on workplace health. For example, for families and carers around breast cancer and also around smoking cessation - how employers can promote a smoke-free workplace.
What does Bupa think needs to change to make this shift?
We think that really this needs a concerted collaboration and action. For example, in the last year we’ve brought together a group of forty leading Chief Medical Officers from global companies to think about what we can do together to improve the health of the world, reduce the impact of chronic disease but also start reviewing companies in terms of improving prevention and treatment and care.
How can Bupa and NGOs work better together?
We’ve got a number of global partnerships and we’re very keen to work with NGOs. We’ve got a partnership with the International Union of Cancer Control, World Heart Federation, NCD Alliance and Alzheimer’s Disease International. With each of them we’re actually looking to see what we can do to prevent and treat diseases in the workplace. So our focus is how you improve workplaces and their health and we really think that’s a great opportunity to reach workers themselves but also, through them, their families and their broader communities. So we think it’s a great place to ripple out the impact that we can have to improve people’s health.
