Happy New Year. With winter well and truly here, keep cosy while learning about all the exciting things in store at Answer Cancer. I hope this January update gives you some ideas for things to do and think about while watching the wind, rain, sleet and snow! Enjoy the links, news and information.
Newsletter Highlights
- Book onto our new year training sessions
- Bee Involved
- January is Cervical Cancer awareness month
- Video shorts
- PROMOTE study
- Good news for bowel cancer screening
- This Van Can
- Who’s pledged to Bee Seen, Get Screened?
Upcoming Training & Events
Free training sessions from Answer Cancer, the Greater Manchester Cancer Screening Engagement Programme! Different dates and times are available to suit you. We are now offering training through a mixture of online and face-to-face sessions, so please make note when signing up!
You need to register in advance to attend the sessions, but you can join as many sessions as you like. For a list of courses and register, please click here.
Courses provided by other organisations
 |
Talk Cancer CoursesThe 2024 dates for Cancer Research UK Talk Cancer and Train the Delivered by nurse trainers, these online, interactive workshops give • How to reduce the risk of cancer If you promote health and wellbeing in your community, the Talk Cancer |
Bee Involved
Bee Involved is Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s (MFT) Patient and Public Involvement group. Richard Medway the MFT Involvement and Engagement Officer shares what it is about and why you might be interested.
We want to make sure that everyone gets great care whenever they use MFT services. We do this by encouraging the people who provide the services and the people who use them to work together.
There are always new and exciting opportunities to be involved at MFT. How you get involved is up to you. You can join meetings to share your experiences or attend improvement events to give feedback on the work we are doing. You can join projects to tell us what you think or simply help to review the information we share with our patients. The most important thing is that your voice is heard.
If you are interested in helping MFT be better for our patients, carers, and families, please email beeinvolved@mft.nhs.uk to find out more.
The Cancer Improvement Collaborative is a large group within Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT). They come together regularly to make things better for people with cancer.
We need to listen to patients and understand what they have gone through so we can be better in the future. This is what we want you to help us with.
We would like you to come to an online meeting once a month. An online meeting is one you can join using your computer, smartphone, or tablet. We would like you to come to one or two of the big meetings in person as well. That means one or two times per year.
If you have been a cancer patient at MFT and would like to help make us make our services better, please email beeinvolved@mft.nhs.uk to find out more.
January is cervical cancer awareness month
Answer Cancer will be sharing messages across our social media platforms throughout January about the importance of cervical screening in preventing cervical cancer.
Please like and share our messages wherever you see them to ensure they reach as many people as possible.
The CRUK video, Should I Go for Cervical Screening, has clear information for anyone who would like to know more about the screening process.
Video shorts
Our Answer Cancer Champions Jess, Leah and Richard have made short videos about the importance of cancer screening in their communities as part of our Looks Like Us campaign.
There are more than 90 useful videos on our You Tube channel. Why not take a look and see how these resources can help you to spread the message that cancer screening saves lives.
Video shorts
The PROMTE Study
Many racial and ethnic minority groups, including Muslims, are underrepresented in cancer clinical trials, even though cancer affects people from all backgrounds. In the UK, there hasn’t been much research into how Muslim faith and culture influence experiences with cancer, beliefs about health, and decisions about treatment—especially when it comes to joining clinical trials. Automatic, unintentional assumptions or stereotypes among healthcare professionals may also play a role. Understanding this is key to improving participation in cancer screening, treatment and clinical trials.
This study focuses on how Muslim women’s religion and cultural norms shape their views and experiences with breast cancer and clinical trials, as well as the perspectives of their families and healthcare providers. The goal is to create recruitment strategies and materials that are culturally and spiritually sensitive, improve understanding of cancer and clinical research, and provide better cultural awareness training for healthcare professionals.
Contact Lorraine
Good news for bowel cancer screening
We are excited to share that the Pennine Bowel Cancer Screening Programme is expanding to invite people aged 50 from the 6th January 2025.
Anyone who is already 50 up to the 5th January 2025 will not receive the first kit until they are 52 but anyone who is 50 on the 6th January 2025 and from then on will receive their first kit on their 50th Birthday.
There is evidence that if someone takes part in bowel screening the first time they are invited, they will continue to take part for their screening lifetime. This is very important in the newly invited 50-year-olds, particularly men as this will be their first experience of being invited to an NHS Cancer Screening programme.
Spread the good news across your networks.
If you want to know more about bowel screening why not complete our online quiz below.
Bowel screening quiz
This Van Can
GM Cancer Alliance’s This Van Can is touring Greater Manchester to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer. The van aims to deliver education around bowel cancer symptoms and the importance of bowel screening. Finding bowel cancer early makes it much more treatable.
The van has already completed its visits to Manchester and Salford. Following its visit to Stockport, the van will move around Greater Manchester as follows:
Trafford – late January
Tameside – early February
Oldham – late February
Rochdale – early March
Bury – late March
Bolton – early April
Click the button below to find out when the van will be near to you.
Where is This Van Can?
Who’s pledged to the Bee Seen, Get Screened?
Trafford Council recently pledged to Bee Seen, Get Screened ensuring that all their staff can feel confident in asking for time off to attend cancer screening appointments.
Answer Cancer delivered screening awareness training to the staff to ensure everyone had information to make informed choices about cancer screening.
Why not ask your workplace to sign up to the pledge?
Pledge here
If you have any questions or queries please contact us using the link below.
| GET IN TOUCH |
Follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook. Like and share our page to help spread the Answer Cancer message.
Engage with Voluntary Sector North West
As one of the four partners in Answer Cancer, Voluntary Sector North West supports the sector “to positively shape the future of the North West”.
If you are a VCFSE organisation interested in engaging with Voluntary Sector North West, we invite you to connect with us. You can join free of charge as either a full member or an associate member, or simply subscribe to our e-bulletin to receive the latest updates and insights about the sector. If you are interested in joining as a member, or would like to join our conference on the 14th November, just follow the links.