Having been crowned UHNW wealth manager of the year at the Spear’s Awards last Thursday, HSBC’s Charlie Hoffman has joined calls encouraging men to be screened for prostate cancer.
The Spear’s Award winner discovered he had prostate cancer earlier this year after a conversation with Soho House founder Nick Jones.
Jones, who had a procedure to remove a large, aggressive tumour that was discovered by a test in 2022, told Hoffman that ‘everyone needed an MRI on their prostate’. Other methods of screening, such as the widely used PSA tests, which measure levels of a protein related to prostate cancer, can be unreliable.
The topic of prostate cancer screening in men hit the headlines over the weekend when former Prime Minister David Cameron revealed his diagnosis in an interview with the Times. Cameron also has Jones to thank; he took the decision to undergo a test having listened to a radio interview in which Jones discussed his own diagnosis.
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Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers. In the UK alone, 33 men die from the disease every day. This accounts for seven per cent of all UK cancer deaths. One in six men will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime.
Jones has campaigned for all men in the UK to be offered screening by the NHS once they get to the age of 50 – or 45 for black men and those with a family history of prostate cancer, since they are statistically far more likely to develop the disease. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Jones said that ‘every man at 50 – or 45 if you have a family history of the disease, or you’re black, because you’re at double the risk – [should be] invited to be screened for prostate cancer just as every woman in the country gets a letter inviting her to have a mammogram’.
‘And what many don’t know is that, if you’re 50 you can go to the doctor and request a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test, but doctors often talk it down: “Oh, you don’t need that.” And we’re all wired to believe our doctors. So you have to push for it. Perhaps even pretend to have symptoms, like peeing more.’
Jones and Hoffman both stress that PSA tests aren’t perfect. Hoffman was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year. This followed six PSA tests which came back ‘very low’, he told Spear’s. After following Jones’ advice he managed to have an MRI scan through his insurers – with the help of urology specialist Paul Cathcart. The results from the MRI painted a different picture and came back as a ‘PI RADS 4’, which denotes a ‘high’ likelihood of clinically significant prostate cancer.
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Hoffman was given a 60:40 chance of dying early from the disease, but after a procedure to remove the cancerous tissue in September of this year, he is now cancer-free, and doing his bit to encourage colleagues, contacts, clients and friends to be screened if they possibly can.
‘I am lucky’, Hoffman explains. ‘It was so early, if I hadn’t taken the MRI for the hell of it, they wouldn’t have found it for a year or two at least. The biopsy post op showed I had eight little tumours – more than we thought.’
Hoffman says that 20 per cent of men sent Cathcart by Jones return with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Approximately 12,000 men die of prostate annually; it is the country’s most prevalent male cancer.
‘Let’s be honest. Men are not very good at talking about their health’, admitted Cameron in his candid interview. It’s a point that Hoffman acknowledges.
‘I am very open about this,’ says the HSBC wealth manager. ‘And the more we normalise it, the less people get scared by the C-word. In short, go get an MRI.’
Hoffman points to another high-profile case in terminally ill gold medal-winning former Olympian Sir Chris Hoy. ‘Amazingly fit, only 46, went to the doctor having thought he had done an injury to his shoulder weight training and found a secondary tumour, the primary was prostate. He is stage four.’
Along with Cameron and Jones, Hoffman is adamant that men who might be at risk should seek a test as soon as they can. The result will either be to put their mind at rest, or to give themselves the very best chance of getting the treatment they need, while a full recovery is still possible.
Since Covid, long before his diagnosis, Hoffman has volunteered for the Macmillan Cancer Support. Each week, he spends an hour speaking to a patient, spending 12 consecutive weeks with the same patient. He describes the experience as ‘very rewarding and a huge privilege’, but adds: ‘I never thought I would be the patient myself.’
