France is acknowledged to have some of the best cancer care in the world
And with over 140,000 Britons officially going abroad for treatment last year, increasing numbers of us are taking advantage of French healthcare because it is relatively affordable, easy to access and acknowledged as the best.
After I had treatment in UK, I found the British system is very bad at dealing with the many side effects of cancer drugs. and on the advice of the Senior Chaplain at the Royal Marsden Hospital I started to go to France for their superb centres to ‘mop up’ my horrid problems with drug side effects.
If you want to copy me, your GP should be able to find the best place for you to go. You have to pay, but prices seemed to be more reasonable than private treatment in UK (unless you go to one of the super-luxury spa centres!).
You will probably have to spend some time Googling, and here are some French websites: 
1. La Ligue contre le cancer at www.ligue-cancer.net who may be able to provide you with the latest up to date treatments provided in France to people with cancer.
2. INca (Institute Nationale du Cancer) provides a list of specialist hospitals and research programs. The Website is in French ie http: www.e-cancer.fr/
3. European Cancer Patients Coalition – www.ecpc.org Which is the voice of cancer patients in Europe and the website is in English.
4. Unicancer http://www.unicancer.fr/en/patients/french-comprehensive-cancer-centers
Visiting a French centre
In France, many of their world-famous treatments for side effects are based in spa towns, with different thermal waters on tap – so the picture above of the swimming pool La Roche Posay is typical!
When I started on Tamoxifen, nurses could peel off strips of skin from my arms, I itched all over and broke out in bloody skin blisters – not a pretty sight – made even worse by the hospital’s Head Dermatologist telling me “it’s due to your age”.
Luckily a friend suggested I go to La Roche Posay, in France, where their expertise was streets ahead. Here, they confirmed that it was Tamoxifen giving me the problems, and incidentally what I was experiencing were recognised side effects from many of the strong drugs we are given today. They sorted out my problems with efficiency and lovely treatments, and I am now a firm devotee of the products developed here.
Many of the “centre thermal” staff speak English, and smiles got round any minor language problems. https://www.thermes-larocheposay.fr/en/wou
After this, whenever I had a nasty side effect, I would Google around to see where treating this was the speciality, and go off to experience fantastic doctoring allied to massages, pampering and good food! france.fr