Cancer: Health Education

(asked on 27th June 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to raise public awareness of blood cancer and other cancers for which symptoms can be non-specific and have similarities to other benign conditions.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 5th July 2016

Public Health England’s (PHE) Be Clear on Cancer campaigns are designed to raise the public’s awareness of specific cancer symptoms, encourage people with those symptoms to go to the doctor and diagnose cancer at an earlier stage. These campaigns are delivered by PHE in partnership with the Department and NHS England.

The decision on which cancers should be the focus of ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaigns is informed by a steering group, whose members include primary and secondary care clinicians, and key voluntary sector organisations.

A number of factors are taken into account when deciding which campaigns to develop and run, with one of the main criteria being the scope to save lives through earlier diagnosis and whether the cancer has a clear early sign or symptom that the general public can act upon should it arise. There are a number of cancers, including those for which symptoms can be non-specific, which are not covered by ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ specifically.

Reticulating Splines