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While we find the comparison unhelpful for clinical purposes, we argue that it can be a helpful lens through which to examine service provision for psychosis in young people. Through this lens, specialist community-based services would appear to compare reasonably well. Inpatient care for young people with psychosis, on the other hand, suffers very badly by comparison with inpatient facilities for teenage cancer care. We note some of the many positive features of inpatient cancer care for young adults, and\u2014drawing upon previous research on inpatient psychiatric care\u2014observe that many of these are usually absent from mental health facilities. We conclude that this metaphor may be a helpful rhetorical device for communicating the lack of \u2018parity of esteem\u2019 between mental and physical healthcare. This inequity must be made visible in health policy, in commissioning, and in service provision.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2016-011091","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,30]],"date-time":"2017-05-30T08:10:09Z","timestamp":1496131809000},"page":"118-123","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["If psychosis were cancer: a speculative comparison"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"43","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3304-7000","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Michael","family":"Larkin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Aston University, Birmingham, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zo\u00eb","family":"Boden","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"London South Bank University, London, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Elizabeth","family":"Newton","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025092411343307000_43.2.118.1","unstructured":"Department of Health. 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