You may already have heard in the media that cancer-screening rates have hit a twenty-year low in England especially for cervical screening.
Greater Manchester ranks 12th out of the 14 regions across England for bowel and cervical screening and 13th for breast screening.
To address this, the Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership has commissioned a three year Greater Manchester Cancer Screening Programme, called ‘Answer Cancer’.
‘Answer Cancer’ want to work with local community groups to increase the number of breast, bowel and cervical cancer screenings. We are particularly keen to reach people who have traditionally not taken up the cancer-screening offer, in particular, carers, people with disabilities, the BME and LGBT communities and people living in areas of high deprivation.
We cover all three national screening programmes and sessions are delivered over one to three hours depending on the need of the group. We will be encouraging participants to sign up to be Cancer Champions at the end of the sessions. There is also a grants programme that voluntary organisations can apply to, so they can work within their own communities to recruit cancer champions. The next round of funds will be released in early 2020.
There are four organisations involved in the delivery of the programme: VSNW (Voluntary Sector North West), BHA for Equality in Health & Social Care, Unique Improvements (a social enterprise) and Salford CVS.