I am an oncologist. Please don’t ask me to write a business case

‘Nothing in my medical training prepared me for writing a business case to help patient care,’ Ranjana Srivastava writes. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

All cancer patients are vulnerable in their own way but no patient is more vulnerable than the elderly cancer patient, which is why my chosen subspeciality of geriatric oncology feels like an especially worthwhile endeavour to me. With global life expectancy soon to be 80 years, 70% of cancers will be diagnosed in older people, with 8% appearing in those over 85.

Elderly cancer patients are more likely to be frail and vulnerable from health conditions including cognitive impairment. They are at higher risk of falls, medication mix-ups, malnutrition and loneliness. To complicate matters, the elderly cancer patient is frequently caring for or being taken care of by another elderly person, so treating one patient necessitates thinking about the needs of two.