Sharing stories on World Cancer Day 2021: Irina Belun-Vieira

03 February 2021 - Our Head of Nursing Cancer at King's tells us why World Cancer Day matters

To mark World Cancer Day on 4 February, we spoke to Irina Belun-Vieira, Head of Nursing Cancer at King’s College London NHS Foundation Trust.

“Prevalence of cancer increases year-on-year and World Cancer Day provides us with an opportunity to increase health promotion, as well as raise awareness of cancer signs and symptoms to encourage people to access care early.

“With recent advancements in technology, healthcare is more robust in diagnosing and treating cancer, meaning that people are able to continue with their normal lives.

“COVID-19 has presented us with an unprecedented situation where nationally no-one knew what was the best way to respond.

“We have tried to learn from the first wave, and have tried to preserve cancer care as much as possible, and where it is safe to do so. COVID-19 presents us and the wider organisation with different challenges every single day.

“To help support out patients and their families, the team has worked on developing the cancer page on the King’s website with many helpful resources, links to videos and pan-London virtual events available to help and support concerns or questions people may have. We all understand it can be a very lonely time for many of our patients and we have kept our support groups running virtually.”