Following World Cancer Day on Friday 3rd February, NHS England is running its ‘Bus-ting Cancer Tour’ next week which sees NHS staff in a specially designed bus travelling across the country to encourage people who are worried about a cancer symptom to contact their GP.
Part of NHS England’s Help Us, Help You campaign, the bus is visiting towns and cities with some of the lowest early diagnosis rates, including Blackburn, Sunderland, Barnsley, Leicester and London, from Monday 6th February to Friday 10th February.
On Wednesday 8th February, the cancer Bus-ting tour will be visiting Barnsley Town Centre, spending the day outside Barnsley Markets/The Glass Works. The bus will open at 10:00am and run until 4:00pm.
The aim of the cancer Bus-ting tour is to help tackle some of the key barriers to people seeking help, such as the fear around a cancer diagnosis, as well as encouraging awareness of bodily changes that could be a sign of cancer. Health professionals will be on hand at each stop to share further information and help any people without a GP to sign up to their local service.
Stage 1 cancer diagnoses – when cancer is easiest to treat – are lower in Barnsley than the national average and survey data highlights that the most common reasons for people in the Barnsley putting off booking a GP appointment were not wanting to find out bad news and hoping the symptoms would go away on their own. However, 51% of people in Barnsley say they worry about cancer every few months or more.
The NHS is providing more cancer checks than ever before and diagnosing record numbers of cancer at an early stage – so the key message is please don’t let the thought of cancer play on your mind. If something in your body doesn’t feel right contact your GP practice.
