Top 10 Tips: Supporting people with work
For many people living with cancer, work is an important part of their lives. Get our top ten tips on how to support your patients to manage their work life while dealing with cancer.
On this page
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1. Understanding the significance of work for people living with cancer
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2. Supporting equality in the workplace for people living with cancer
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3. Using Fit Notes to guide discussions
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4. Communicating with managers
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5. Using Fit Note comments box
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6. Access to Work schemes
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7. Signposting Macmillan’s Work Support Service
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8. Providing advice within your own competencies
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9. Cancer care reviews and work-related discussions
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10. Resources for discussing work with people living with cancer
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About our information
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For your patients
1. Understanding the significance of work for people living with cancer
Not everyone with cancer will be able to work, but 87% of people who are employed when diagnosed say continuing to work is important. For many, work helps with a sense of normality, positivity and self-esteem and a very legitimate coping mechanism.
2. Supporting equality in the workplace for people living with cancer
Under equality law, employers should make reasonable adjustments. Your conversations with patients about how cancer may impact work can empower them to discuss their needs with employers. This can reduce anxiety and support them to stay in or return to work.
3. Using Fit Notes to guide discussions
View the Fit Note as a conversation tool rather than something on your list of jobs to do. It helps you provide advice to patients about the functional effects of their condition on their fitness for work – a bit like a prescription for work advice.
4. Communicating with managers
Encourage patients to discuss work support needs early with line managers or HR. Agreeing on communication and return to-work plans can help people stay in touch with work and ease the transition back.
5. Using Fit Note comments box
The Fit Note comments box is your opportunity to highlight the impact cancer might have on your patient’s ability to work; this can help their conversations with their employer or Jobcentre. For example, ‘chemotherapy will finish in X weeks, see me about fitness for work two weeks after’, or ‘visits to hospital required every week for blood test and chemo’.
6. Access to Work schemes
Access to Work or Access to Work (NI) are schemes that provide practical support at work to people aged 16 and over who have a disability or health condition that makes it hard to do their job or get to and from work.
7. Signposting Macmillan’s Work Support Service
Signpost patients to Macmillan’s information about work and cancer. It includes information about employment rights, stopping or returning to work and where people living with cancer who have questions about work can find support.
Booklets and resources
This booklet is about work and cancer. It explains how cancer and its treatments can affect your work life. It...
A signposting resource for health and social care professionals to guide people living with cancer who are in...
An easy read booklet about how cancer can affect your job, what your rights are and where to get more support....
8. Providing advice within your own competencies
You don’t need to be an expert to provide helpful advice, but it’s important you work within your competencies. Use the comments box to add suggestions you feel confident about, such as ‘Uncertain of adaptations possible – suggest you discuss with your line manager’.
9. Cancer care reviews and work-related discussions
Cancer Care Reviews are another opportunity to have work-related conversations. Macmillan templates within relevant IT systems can prompt holistic conversations, such as about work, and provide downloadable information you can share with patients to help them access further support.
10. Resources for discussing work with people living with cancer
Macmillan’s Work Support Route Guide helps you discuss work with people living with cancer and provide information about other available support. Additionally, the Council for Work and Health has developed Talking Work: A Guide for Doctors.
About our information
Next planned review: January 2025
We make every effort to ensure the information in these pages is accurate and correct at the date of publication, but it is of necessity of a brief and general nature, and this should not replace your own good clinical judgement. Or be regarded as a substitute for taking professional advice in appropriate circumstances. In particular check any drug doses, side-effects and interactions. Save insofar as any such liability cannot be excluded at law, we do not accept any liability in relation to the use of or reliance on any information contained in on this page, or third-party information or websites referred to in them.