The Keighley Association for Women and Children’s Centre (KAWACC) has led on a new project to train community champions to raise awareness of cancer and to support local people to attend their routine cancer screening.
The initiative has been developed to help reduce health inequalities as local data showed that South Asian women in the area were not accessing cervical screening. The data also showed that the mortality rate from cancer, for women under 75 years old was very high, particularly in central and West Keighley.
Since January this year, the champions have supported local women to attend their cervical screening, and this has been one of the initiatives that has contributed to more women coming forward for screening, with 3,573 women attending screening appointments. This is an extra 144 people going for the test – in less than one year.
The project been supported by partner organisations within the Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership, including WACA, with funding from CORE20PLUS5.
Sharon Cope, the Cancer Community Champion for WACA has been out in the community speaking with people to raise awareness of screening programmes, and how to spot early warning signs of cancer.
