"What Gap Are You Trying To Close?" Dr Liz O'Riordan Asks The Question I Couldn't Fully Answer.

Dr Liz O'Riordan is a consultant breast surgeon who got breast cancer. Three times. She knows the system from both sides of the table — the clinician giving the diagnosis in a 10 minute appointment, and the patient navigating what comes after.

She's also not afraid to push back.

In this conversation Liz challenges some of the assumptions that run through everything I do. She defends the National Health Service in the UK. She questions whether the gap people describe after treatment is as simple as I sometimes make it sound. And she asks me directly — what gap are you actually trying to close?

I didn't have a clean answer. Which turned out to be the most interesting part of the conversation.

We also talk about why awareness campaigns raise money but don't always change behaviour. Why a 10 minute appointment to tell someone they have cancer is both necessary and completely inadequate.

Why digital signposting is a partial answer to a much bigger question. Why rural communities, ethnic minorities and people in deprivation face a completely different version of the cancer system to everyone else. And why the moment treatment ends and the appointments stop is — for many people — the moment the real fear begins.

Liz doesn't sugarcoat things. She doesn't agree with everything I think. And that's exactly why this conversation matters. No easy answers...