Health Business - £8 million funding for early cancer diagnosis campaigns

£8 million funding for early cancer diagnosis campaigns

Up to £100,000 available to PCT’s to target breast, colorectal and lung cancer.

£8 million is to be made available to local NHS organisations to fund campaigns that improve early diagnosis of cancer.

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are being invited to bid for up to £100,000 to run campaigns targeted at one or more of the three biggest killers, of breast, colorectal and lung cancer. They will measure the impact so the most effective can be repeated across the country.

PCTs will be able to use the money for advertising campaigns, outreach work and making more public information available and will be given a pack of social marketing examples.

One example is the Doncaster Cough Campaign which promoted awareness that a persistent cough could mean lung cancer and included the use of a ‘coughing’ bus shelter, where sound chips coughed repeatedly to draw attention to the symptom. Early patient diagnosis increased from 11 per cent to 19 per cent.

The Department of Health will work in partnership with the National Cancer Action Team and Cancer Research UK to support PCTs in developing, running and evaluating their campaign.

Cancer Research UK Chief Executive Harpal Kumar said: "This campaign is part of a critically important programme of work designed to ensure that patients in the UK have their cancers detected as early as possible."

"All too often cancer is found at a late stage when it’s harder to treat. For example, 90 per cent of bowel cancers can be cured if treated early but only 13 per cent are detected at the earliest stage."

Further information:
Cancer Research UK