Communities in Knowsley are being asked to help raise awareness of cancer so it can be diagnosed earlier.
Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance is joining forces with voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations across Knowsley to increase people’s understanding of cancer.
The aim is to improve knowledge of the signs and symptoms of cancer within local communities, encourage more people to go for NHS screening when they are invited, and to reduce inequalities in access to high-quality cancer treatment and care.
Cancer is easier to treat if it is found in its early stages and, with prompt treatment, usually much more successfully, so improving the understanding of early signs of the disease is vital.
Today (Monday, June 6th, 2022), the cancer alliance is launching its Community Engagement Project, a £100,000 pilot scheme with the voluntary and community sectors in Knowsley, as well as Halton and Warrington. The alliance hopes to expand it to all areas of Cheshire and Merseyside in due course.
The alliance will be working with the sector’s support organisation One Knowsley on the project to involve community groups, delivered through a grant programme.
Tracey Wright, Associate Director of Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance, said: “The NHS Long Term Plan has set an ambition for all cancers to be diagnosed at an early stage by 2028. One of the most important ways to do this is for people to see a clinician as soon as they suspect something is wrong and to go to their screening appointment when invited.
“Our Community Engagement Project is an exciting partnership with the voluntary sector and is designed to utilise the fantastic community groups and volunteers across our region to help us get these messages out to more people.
“We also want to support community groups in offering the right advice to people on living a healthy life and making choices which improve physical wellbeing so cancer can be prevented in the first place.”
Tracey added: “We also know there are a number of groups across our region who have more difficulty than others in accessing the cancer treatment and care they need, whether that is due to deprivation, ethnicity, age or other barriers. The local organisations we will be working with know these problems at a grassroots level and so can help spread these important messages to people who have been harder to reach in the past.”
Racheal Jones, Chief Executive Officer at One Knowsley, said: “We are really pleased to be partnering with Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance to help our fantastic community groups, who do so much in our communities, to pass on important information about cancer to their members and the wider public. This is a ground-breaking project which is designed, ultimately, to save lives.”
For more information, see: https://oneknowsley.org/knowsley-cancer-alliance/
Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance: https://www.cmcanceralliance.nhs.uk/
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Please email Communications Manager Paul Ogden on paul.ogden1@nhs.net or ring 07385 425026.
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
The NHS Long Term Plan is a 10-year, ambitious but realistic strategy for NHS services drawn up by frontline staff, patients groups and national experts. Read it here: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/
Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance is responsible for cancer performance, quality and outcomes across Cheshire and Merseyside, bringing together organisations, patients and others affected by cancer to:
- Plan for and lead delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions for cancer, ensuring variation in outcomes is addressed and that improvements are made across whole pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and support for people living with cancer
- Drive improvements in patients’ experience of the care and treatment they receive
- Provide oversight and coordination to support delivery of the waiting times standards for cancer
We work closely with cancer services and people affected by cancer to achieve:
- Better Cancer Services by providing access to expertise and learning; leading change in care pathways, and in piloting new scientific innovations
- Better Cancer Care by sharing and building on good patient experience practice
- Better Cancer Outcomes by increasing early detection, early diagnosis; enabling early access to cancer services and pathways, and ensuring cancer patients have access to the support they need to live long fulfilling lives beyond cancer
Our ambition is to:
- Increase the number of people each year who will survive for five years or more following their cancer diagnosis
- Work towards three in four cancers (75%) being diagnosed at an early stage where they are more likely to be treatable and continue to live a good quality of life following cancer
