North Central London Cancer Alliance

Yesterday our Co-clinical Director, Dr Clare Stephens, gave the keynote presentation at the 13th NHS Primary Care Transformation Conference with Convenzis Group. It was an ideal opportunity to explain how we are enhancing cancer education and training across primary care locally. We are creating a primary care cancer academy to offer a one-stop platform that provides clinical and non-clinical primary care staff access to cancer-related training resources. It will include a new accredited e-learning tool tailored to improve early diagnosis and cancer care practices. #PrimaryCare #CancerCare #CancerAlliances

We regularly run webinars for our North Central London colleagues in primary care to keep them updated on guidelines and treatment pathways for cancer care. The most recent was led by Nicola Macdonald, North Central London Cancer Alliance Gynaecology Clinical Network Director and consultant gynaecological oncologist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She has led a working group including GPs and community gynae representatives to develop two new guidelines: Management of unscheduled bleeding on HRT and Management of ovarian/adnexal cysts. The webinar explains the work and how the guidelines will help GPs in North Central London to look after patients experiencing these symptoms, and when and how to refer them for further care or investigations. Visit our YouTube channel to view this and other webinars on cancer care for healthcare professionals. https://lnkd.in/e6S72_ba #MenopauseMonth #GynaecologicalHealth #CancerCare

Huge congratulations to Neal Navani, clinical director for our Centre for Cancer Outcomes, on his professorship at UCL.

Thank you North East London Cancer Alliance for helping to amplify this important project. #YourHealthFirst

Today is #WorldHomelessDay. Our #YourHealthFirst campaign to raise awareness of cancer screening among people experiencing homelessness has been running for a few weeks and later we will evaluate the impact of the campaign and the engagement of local homelessness support organisations who have been talking about cancer screening with their clients. But Your Health First is part of a bigger project to address the health inequalities for people experiencing homelessness. Over the last two years we have worked with primary care, public health, voluntary organisations and people with lived experience to understand the barriers to screening participation and devise ways to make changes, under the banner of four themes. The interim report on our work, conducted by Homeless Link says: “Overall, the project demonstrates positive potential for sustainability and replication beyond North Central London.” Find out more https://lnkd.in/d6i73f2t

Our MD Ali Malik spoke about one of our key drivers - reducing cancer health inequalities - at Public Policy Projects conference yesterday.

People experiencing homelessness have a significantly lower uptake of cancer screening than the general population. We’re aiming to change that with our campaign “Your Health First,” encouraging people experiencing homelessness to take part in the national cancer screening programmes. Booklets, posters and pocket-sized cards have been produced to give people experiencing homelessness more knowledge and understanding about bowel, breast, and cervical screening in three steps: get registered, get screened, get your results. Booklets are available in English and 15 other languages. As part of the campaign, artist Sam King created pavement art outside Mulberrry Junction, a day centre for people affected by homelessness, to encourage people experiencing homelessness to take part in the national cancer screening programmes. Thanks to the local organisations supporting the campaign: All People All Places, C4WS Homeless Project, Change Grow Live, Enfield Council, Euston Foodbank, The Salvation Army Chalk Farm Corps, Haringey Council Islington Council, Single Homeless Project. More information available at: smallc.org.uk https://lnkd.in/dPW7tx98

Last week we hosted a share and learn event for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations who are leading and contributing to the delivery of our public cancer awareness and screening campaigns. By working with them we are able to do more to localise and amplify national and regional NHS cancer awareness and screening campaigns. We can spread messages more directly and more effectively engage our diverse population in North Central London.  It was a great forum to share project progress to date and discuss delivery plans for the next campaign focused on breast screening awareness. #NorthCentralLondonCommunities #CancerScreeningSavesLives

We are glad to see that our #YouScreen study continues to be discussed, following publication of the results in July. HPV self-sampling could make a real difference to cervical screening participation.

Last week we launched Your Health First, a campaign to raise awareness of cancer screening among people experiencing homelessness. Our thanks to Mulberry Junction run by Haringey Council for letting us decorate their entrance with our campaign slogan. We had a great morning last Thursday talking to service users and key workers about attending screening, what to do and the support information that is available. We are working with eight local homelessness support organisations to spread the word. The campaign is part of a wider project to address inequalities in screening participation in this section of our local population. Read more in our news story here: https://lnkd.in/eevKE8RM Art by Sam King Brushes with Greatness