Lung Cancer Project    

 Lung Cancer Awareness & Early Detection Campaign

From June 20th 2011 LSCCN will be running a 6 week campaign targeted at raising awareness of Lung Cancer across areas in Lancashire identified as having poor outcomes for lung cancer sufferers.

The areas targeted will be:

• Shadsworth with Whitebirk and Audley wards in Blackburn
• Central and Bradley wards in East Lancashire
• Deepdale, St. Matthews and Ribbleton wards in Preston
• Pharoes, Harbour and Heysham wards in North Lancashire
• Bloomfield, Claremont and Park wards in Blackpool

Poor outcomes in terms of the time patients survive after a diagnosis of lung cancer are often due to late presentation and diagnosis of the disease. The awareness campaign will be promoting the message that lung cancer can be cured if caught early enough.  With this in mind, the campaign will ask people who have a cough that has lasted 3 weeks or more to visit their General Practitioner.

General Practitioners in the targeted areas have already been engaged through a series of events that presented specific referral data for their areas. We have requested GP's with a patient presenting with a 3 week cough to refer the patient for a chest x-ray.

The social marketing element of the campaign is being delivered by local community based organisations who have extensive experience of engaging with communities in their area. The oganisations are:

• Blackburn - The Healthy Living Centre and Blackburn CVS
• East Lancashire - Communities Against Cancer
• Preston- Fishwick Rangers
• Blackpool and North Lancashire - n-Compass

Each of the organisations will be working to deliver the project using tried and tested models in their own communities with the aim of raising chest x-ray referral rates.  This in turn, will hopefully raise the UK mortality statistics to the level of those experienced by the best European performers.

The project will be subject to a full evaluation, Chest x-ray referral rates being measured both before and after the campaign through use of a dedicated referral code by participating G.P's.

Further details will follow, so please watch this space.  Together, we really can save lives.

For further information please contact keith.swindell@lsccn.nhs.uk