E220: Dr. Laura Charlesworth - Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and Cancer Care

Trigger Warning: cancer, mental health and serious mental illness, neglect, death and dying.

Episode 220: Part of the Workforce and Development Series (part 78).

Description: In this thought-provoking episode, Naman Julka-Anderson and Jo McNamara are joined by Dr. Laura Charlesworth to explore the experiences of people living with serious mental illness alongside cancer.

Laura shares insights from her research into how serious mental illness and other co-morbidities can influence cancer care, and discusses the importance of person-centred care, health service design and tackling health inequalities.

Laura completed her PhD in 2024, titled Enabling coping in people living with cancer and serious mental illness. Her research explored how people living with serious mental illness perceived and experienced their needs when diagnosed with and treated for cancer. Through in-depth interviews and grounded theory analysis, Laura developed a new theoretical model highlighting how personal experiences and resilience, healthcare encounters and stigma, and the wider social determinants of health can shape an individual’s ability to cope with the complexities of living with cancer and serious mental illness.

Laura is an Associate Professor and Health Services Research Fellow at York St John University. In this episode, we discuss what her research tells us about delivering more compassionate, inclusive and person-centred cancer care, and consider how health services can better respond to the needs of people experiencing multiple health inequalities.

CPD Reflection Points:

What did you learn?

What were the key things you learned from this activity? Did anything challenge, reinforce or change your existing knowledge, understanding or beliefs?How does this relate to your practice?

How does the learning relate to your current role and practice? Has it highlighted anything you could improve, develop or approach differently?What difference could this make to service users?

How could applying this learning improve the experience, safety, dignity, outcomes or equality of care for the people you work with?What will you do differently?

Identify one specific action you will take as a result of this learning. This could relate to your clinical practice, communication, professional behaviour, teamwork or service delivery.How will you know it has made a difference?