SOTA students join NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance for Targeted Lung Health Check Programme (TLHC) workshop
Sixteen School of the Arts students last week joined with representatives from the NHS Cancer Alliance for a day-long session on the Targeted Lung Health Check Programme (TLHC).
The students heard about the importance and the history of the programme itself, health inequality in the region and the importance of effective and trustworthy communication to the public. The students took part in a focus group and discussed potential barriers to local people accessing the programme as well as reviewing communications and promotional material the NHS have used to raise awareness of the programme.
THLC has been rolled out in most areas around Liverpool, giving targeted locals the opportunity to access free lung cancer screenings at selected drop-in locations in the area. However, the programme is struggling with a low uptake rate - around 60% of those invited to the programme in the area have declined involvement. The workshop aimed to give students the opportunity to support the creation of a new communications strategy, with the goal to increase participation rates in the Liverpool area.
Max Thomasson, Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance:
“We believe these student led sessions were particularly successful and it was amazing seeing all the contributions from everyone involved. We hope the day gave everyone an interesting insight the C&M Cancer Alliance’s involvement in the Targeted Lung Health Check programme and provided you all with some of the context and information used by the NHS to plan and shape new projects. We hope to keep working with UoL in the future, thanks again!”
Sam Bird, SOTA Employability and Placements Officer said:
“The TLHC programme is such an important initiative within the community and to have our SotA students learning more about the programme and contributing their own ideas and thoughts into discussions about health inequality, barriers to access and community engagement was absolutely brilliant.”
English student Lizzie Bridgewater:
“Thank you for yesterday I really enjoyed it and felt everyone got something out of the day, I’ll definitely be putting it on my CV.”
You can find out more about the Targeted Lung Health Checks programme here and watch a report on BBC North West Tonight here. Alternatively, you can email Max Thomasson directly to find out more.