Brook Square SurgeryWelcome to the latest edition of our Cancer Champion Newsletter. Here you will find out about what has been happening across our community of Cancer Champions and about upcoming events and involvement opportunities.
A huge welcome to those of you who have recently completed the Cancer Champion training and thanks to everyone for continuing to encourage early detection of cancer across Humber, Coast and Vale.
Refresher Training
Our refresher training sessions have continued to grow in popularity and we’ve loved having the opportunity to reconnect with you all.
It’s been great to hear about how your initial training has helped raise awareness of the early signs and symptoms of cancer and how you have helped family members, friends and colleagues to reach out to their GPs for assistance, when needed. We’ve also heard about how the Cancer Champion awareness sessions have helped you to become more aware about what’s ‘normal for you’ and take action.
One such story was from Sharon who after attending training in March 2019, visited her GP with a concerning symptom and has since been treated for stage two breast cancer. Please take the time to view Sharon’s powerful story (see below) and if you would like to sign up for an upcoming refresher training session, please email eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net or keep an eye out for new dates on Twitter, Facebook or circulated by email.
‘If I hadn’t done the Cancer Champion training, where would I be? Learning about cancer saved my life’ – Sharon’s story
Our Alliance is incredibly proud that the Cancer Champion programme prompted Sharon to speak to her GP, leading to an early diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Dr Dan Cottingham, CRUK GP Lead for Humber, Coast and Vale Cancer Alliance said, “The Alliance is really pleased to have supported Sharon’s journey to early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As Sharon’s experience highlights, cancer is most treatable when it is diagnosed early and that’s why it’s important to be aware of the early signs of cancer and to know what’s normal for you. If you are worried about a symptom that might be cancer, please contact your GP without delay.”
This story is a fantastic example of how a small action, such as sharing the Know Your Lemons poster (see below), can have a huge impact on someone’s life.
If you would like a digital copy of the poster to share within your workplace or community newsletter, please email us at eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net.
Championing cancer awareness in your community
Here are a few more examples of how Cancer Champions are helping to support earlier diagnosis of cancer across Humber, Coast and Vale:
- A relative has had a persistent cough for a while. I told them to speak to their GP about it and it turned out not to be cancer. They were relieved as they had been worried about it.
- Advised my friend to get checked for a pain between hip and top of leg, turns out she had cervical cancer. Another friend had repeated sore throat with a lump, so I advised her to get a second opinion and it turned out she had cancer of the thyroid.
- Encouraged my two daughters to have cervical smears done.
- A friend who had stomach bloating, they went to the doctors and cancer was ruled out.
Have a story to tell? We’d love to hear from you! Please email: eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net.
Getting back out into the community
We are looking to recommence face to face Cancer Champion sessions from September 2021
Details of venues and dates will follow soon.
I’m a Cancer Champion – new email signature
To help raise awareness of cancer and encourage more people to sign up for cancer champion training, we’ve created a new image to add to your email signatures!
To access this email signature, please click here and save the image to your desktop before saving it to your standard email signature template.
Then send us an email to eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net to show us – we’re excited to see them all!!
New Cancer Champion Volunteer Programme
We are excited to announce that over the last few months, we have been developing a new Cancer Champion Volunteer Programme that will help us ensure we are able to teach more people about the importance of early diagnosis and signs and symptoms of cancer.
Could you help us to deliver Cancer Champion awareness sessions or take part in local awareness events? If you would be interested in delivering our training session to your community group or place of work, or would like to raise awareness by hosting a stand at a community event near you, then we would love to hear from you!
If you are interested in joining us, please contact Zoe by email eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net or phone 07851 248073.
Awareness Campaigns
Thanks to everyone who recently helped us raise awareness of cervical screening, during Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust’s awareness week in June 2021. Including Katy, who shared her story about her experience of receiving a positive HPV result to help tackle the fears some women and people with a cervix may be experiencing about cervical screening.
You can help to support the upcoming awareness dates by sharing our Twitter and Facebook posts or contacting eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net to request resources for your workplace of community venue.
Please see below for details of the cancer awareness campaigns which are happening in the next few months:
September
- Friday 24th – Macmillan Coffee Morning
- Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month
October
- Breast Cancer Awareness Month
- STOPtober
November
- Mouth Cancer Action Month
- Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month
- Lung Cancer Awareness Month
- Movember Men’s Health
Reminder of Signs and Symptoms
September is Gynaecological Cancer Awareness month
As Gynaecological Cancer Awareness month is coming up soon, we’d like to tell you about some of the most common symptoms and information about ovarian cancer:
Each year 7,400 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the UK with only 1000 of these being younger than 50. Many women with a very early stage ovarian cancer often don’t have any symptoms at all, and 2 in 3 women are diagnosed after the cancer has spread.
Some of the most common symptoms of ovarian cancer include:
- Persistent bloating – not bloating that comes and goes
- Feeling full quickly and/or loss of appetite
- Pelvic or abdominal pain (that’s your tummy and below)
- Urinary symptoms (needing to wee more urgently or more often than usual)
Please visit Target Ovarian Cancer: Symptoms to find out more about the symptoms of ovarian cancer and remember – if you have noticed something that is unusual, persistent and unexplained, then please contact your GP for advice.
Targeted Lung Health Checks in Hull
People who live in Hull aged from 55 to less than 75, who smoke or used to smoke and have a Hull GP will be offered a free NHS lung health check.
Run by specially-trained nurses, a lung health check can reassure you that your lungs are healthy or help find problems early – often before you notice anything is wrong.
Danny and Christine from west Hull benefited from attending a free lung health check appointment in January 2020 and you can hear their story here.
If you or are family member are invited for a lung health check you can find more information about what to expect at www.lunghealthcheck.org.uk.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or want to share your story, please get in touch with our Cancer Champion Programme team, Emma and Zoe, by email eryccg.cancerchampion@nhs.net or phone 07519 120809 (Emma) or 07851 248073 (Zoe).