General practitioners have important roles in cancer

EDITOR—Summerton rightly states that general practitioners have an important role in cancer care, emphasising the issue of early detection by screening and the prompt recognition of specific symptoms.1 It is important, however, to ensure that work on cancer care and primary care does not become dominated by referral guidelines and pathways or by the medical model of care.

In 1998 I was a member of a multidisciplinary working group on cancer and primary …