Susan part of campaign to boost screening
The tragic loss of her husband, Tom, to bowel cancer was what prompted gran Susan Lyons to become one of three Rutherglen people who are fronting a local campaign to encourage the uptake of breast, bowel and cervical screening invitations.
Susan, along with Rutherglen men Andy Scott and Malcolm Cuthbertson, are the faces fronting a hard-hitting local poster campaign in an area where fewer people are taking part in screening programmes than the rest of Scotland.
On Thursday, the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, Joe Fitzpatrick MSP visited Clyde Gateway to officially launch a multi-partner project which aims to encourage more local people to attend screening for breast, bowel and cervical cancer - one of the most effective ways to detect cancer early and improve survival rates.
The‘Screening Inequalities’ project involves partners Clyde Gateway, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Lanarkshire, the Rutherglenbased Healthy‘n’Happy Community Development Trust, People First Scotland, Cancer Research UK, Jo’s Cervical Trust, Celtic FC Foundation and Thenue Housing Association.
The project aims to tackle head-on some of the most common reasons people give for avoiding screening, including embarrassment, fear of pain, inconvenient appointment times, fear of finding out they have cancer, or in the case of bowel screening, feeling that it is dirty or unhygienic.
Ian Manson, chief executive of Clyde Gateway said:“The innovative marketing campaign has been worked up with the support and guidance of local people, many of whom are actually featuring within the publicity materials.
“The project itself is part of our wider efforts to improve the lives of everyone living in the Clyde Gateway area and it fits with the wider physical, social and economic transformation that is underway.
“The statistics demonstrate that more has to be done to help the community improve its health and to address the long-standing health inequalities which is why Clyde Gateway sees this as a key objective over our next 10 years.”
Seven‘cancer coaches’have also been trained to lead a programme in the Clyde Gateway area - which encompasses areas of South Lanarkshire, including Rutherglen, and East Glasgow - to educate adults with learning disabilities and their carers on the importance of attending screening.
Visit the campaign website at www.dontskipyourscreening. co.uk