The PGPA Cancer Care programme, funded by the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance, drives quality improvement of cancer pathways throughout Calderdale.
The programme focuses on three main areas with the support from PGPA’s Cancer Care Coordinator:
Cancer Screening
The national cancer screening programme is an extremely effective way of improving health outcomes and reducing death rates from cervical, breast and bowel cancer.
Increasing awareness of screening, as well as improving equity and accessibility to screening tests, is an important element of PGPA’s cancer care programme. The overall aim is to increase the uptake of cancer screening across all primary care networks in Calderdale to achieve the associated health and well-being benefit to the population.
There are three types of screening available in the UK. These are breast screening, cervical screening and bowel screening.
NHS cancer screening is free and people will be automatically invited by letter or text from their GP surgery.
Screening starts at different ages, depending on the type of cancer.
Early Cancer Diagnosis
Detecting cancer in its early stages significantly improves survival, reduces the burden of treatment and has a positive impact on quality of life. With this in mind, PGPA is involved in work to achieve the NHS target of 75% cancers being diagnosed at the earliest stages. We our doing this by raising awareness about the early symptoms of cancer and by support the Calderdale Cancer Aware team in their work within the community.
In addition to this, PGPA is involved in various programmes aimed at improved early diagnosis of cancer. These include:
Liver and Hep C
FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test)
Lung Cancer
Living with and beyond cancer
PGPA’s Cancer Care Coordinator works with our social prescribers and care coordinators in providing holistic needs assesments that ultimately support patients with cancer in calderdale.
These holistic needs assessments, offered in the early stages of diagnosis and around twelve months afterwards, enable those with cancer to explore and express the physical, emotional, financial, social and spiritual impact of their diagnosis and treatment.
Aswell as offering direct support, our team will also signpost patients to information, people and services relevant to their individual needs.
In 2022 a 12-month Cancer Care Review pilot was launched across two Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in Calderdale, supported by the West Yorkshire & Harrogate Cancer Alliance.
In the Upper Calder Valley, from January 2022 to October 2022 (before the pilot was introduced) there was a total of 294 cancer care reviews undertaken by a GP or Healthcare Assistant to support patients in the Upper Calder Valley PCN.
From November 2022 to November 2023 (duration of the pilot) this increased to 472 cancer care reviews undertaken by a Social Prescribing Link Worker. Which equates to an overall 60% increase.
Find out about its success here.
