48% of cancer carers are working either full-time or part time.

That's potentially half a million people who are trying to juggle work with caring for someone with cancer.

The company's got its job to do and it's got to be successful,

but you need to feel that you've got some sort of tangible support around you.

I felt I was very much the problem case in the company

and all I was wanting to do was support my husband whilst performing my duties in the workplace.

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Macmillan defines a carer as someone who's looking after a person living with cancer

who couldn't manage without that help.

Carers have a range of responsibilities when they're looking after someone with cancer,

and that can include things like personal care, shopping and cooking and cleaning.

But it also involves often getting involved with treatment and we find that caring for someone with cancer

can affect you physically, emotionally; it can affect your work, your finances.

If they're worried about the person at home who's ill, it makes it harder for them to perhaps focus and give work everything.

Leo was a major in the British army, in the Royal Engineers

and Leo was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, which is a cancer of the blood.

He was actually diagnosed just after we got back from our honeymoon back in 1993.

When we realised that Leo was going to need to go into hospital for treatment I decided to keep working as normal.

My view is that you need two working adults to pay a mortgage

and also we wanted the normality of going to work every morning.

I think it's important for managers to be sensitive to the fact that becoming a carer can happen over night.

It can take the employee a while to actually adjust to that.

And obviously they're under a lot of emotional stress because somebody close to them is ill;

so just being sort of sensitive to the confidential and upsetting nature of the situation that they're dealing with.

My sister Lizzie, graphic designer, very artistic lady...we hadn't known any of the symptoms were leading to cancer,

but she was diagnosed and told she had maybe even only days or weeks to live.

On the day that Lizzie was diagnosed, when I got home in the afternoon having seen her,

I immediately thought I've got to sort out work.

It was an automatic decision to be Lizzie's carer

but obviously I was very concerned about maintaining my quality of work as much as I could.

You immediately feel 'how the heck are you going to achieve that',

you know, it's a conflict, nothing else compares to that sort of conflict, really.

Carers do have some rights in the workplace;

one of the most important ones is the right to request flexible working.

This isn't automatically a right to receive it, but employers do need to consider such requests on their merit.

Another right that employees have is the right to time off in emergencies.

This may be unpaid, but they do have this right if a situation arises where they need to care for somebody at short notice.

For a number of weeks, things worked fine in that sense because I was able to be flexible;

they gave me a laptop to work at home.

I used to get up at 5, work from 6 until 9, pick up Lizzie, take her to the hospital, go through the chemotherapy,

bring her back, either I'd sit with her or sometimes she'd be exhausted,

and then I'd just go back to the laptop and work until 10, 11 at night.

During the period for one of Leo's bone marrow transplants the most practical thing to do

was actually to live at hospital during the week, sleeping at the end of his bed on a fold up bed.

Some of the time I would find myself being woken up in the middle of the night by a team of doctors

coming in to administer treatment or to revive Leo in the worst case

and then of course in the morning get up and go to work.

At that time I was basically in survival mode and purely concentrating on the essential things.

What was more difficult was simple things like doing the shopping for food,

which was mainly done late at night at a petrol forecourt.

Certainly all the 'me-time' type activities, such as just going to the gym or getting your hair cut

or going to the dentist would just fall by the wayside.

One of the most important ways for actually supporting carers in the workplace

is for managers to set up good communication, good 2-way communication,

so that the carer feels they can speak to them openly and confidentially

about any concerns they might have or any changes they might need to make to their working patterns.

Cancer is a fluctuating condition, so it's difficult for carers to predict exactly

when they're going to need time off work and that's why it's helpful for managers to be flexible.

I realised perhaps 3 weeks or so before Lizzie was passing away that there was a definite decline.

I phoned up and I said I'm absolutely terrified because I might lose my job now, but she now needs 24/7,

I can't work any more, I can't have that compromise.

When I got the message back that there was no way that I would lose my job,

it was just a massive, massive relief - I just needed that security.

And actually at that level it also felt like some sort of personal care in a sense - somebody cared.

It's important that the workplace has its own dedicated carers policy so that if someone becomes a carer

especially at short notice they can refer to the policy and see what provision the organisation makes for them.

So this would include things like their legal rights as a carer but also any special provisions made by the organisation,

such as dedicated carers' leave or the different types of flexible working offered by the organisation.

Shortly after the bone marrow transplant itself was the annual performance review.

Regrettably, I was marked in the very bottom box

because it was felt that I didn't really exhibit going that extra mile type of behaviour that they were looking for.

So at the very time that I was going through a real period of crisis, the most difficult thing I've ever had to face in my life,

I was being expected to not only achieve but to exceed achievements at work.

When I realised I would only have eight weeks to turn the situation around or else lose my job,

I basically had a little bit of a breakdown and I just ran off to the GP and just said, 'I can't cope any more'.

Carers are also protected under the equality act to ensure they are not discriminated against in the workplace.

Discrimination in the workplace can take many forms.

It can be as simple as overlooking somebody for a promotion,

or it can be more obvious discrimination of individuals -

excluding that person, or making derogatory comments about them because of the situation that they're in.

It's important that line managers respect confidentiality and privacy of the cancer carer

though with their permission it can be helpful to perhaps talk to the rest of the team to think about

how workloads can perhaps be re-allocated and also keeping communication with other departments and managers

about maybe adjusting deadlines and schedules to accommodate the fact that someone might need to take time off to care.

A lot of carers find it helpful to actually speak to someone who is going through the same experience,

so managers might want to consider setting up a buddying system.

Macmillan does actually provide guidelines on this.

And it involves sort of matching up people

who would like to support a fellow carer who is maybe finding it difficult to combine working and caring.

I can look back at a time when I was very happy, very fulfilled and I think sadly I have been scarred

by the conflict between the work situation and fulfilling your obligations as a carer.

Something close to post traumatic stress, looking back at that period and just realising that the rug

could get pulled away from you or could have been pulled away from you at any time.

And I've really had to work on that with counselling and support from friends

and anywhere I can get the support including Macmillan.

We're at work the greater part of our lives and hopefully we're in a work environment

where we'll stay there because we're valued and we value work.

So for what is relatively a short space of time but the most horrendous situation generally that people can go through,

don't treat them with kid gloves, treat them with the respect of the strength that they have

and the fact that they've worked for you and they've given everything to you as well.

Let them know exactly what the policies are but also let them know you're prepared to be flexible

and let that person feel that they're empowered to take responsibility for dealing with something

that is that important to them in that time in life.