The official Be Clear on Cancer campaign is looking for people who may be willing to tell their story for the media in order to make the campaign more relevant for people. The campaign is due to take place on a national basis for England from 26 January to the end of February 2015.
Their 'ideal criteria' (which I am copying and pasting) are as follows:
Aged over 50 when diagnosed with either oesophageal or stomach cancer
•Diagnosed at an early stage (ideally, although this can be an opportunity to say “earlier the diagnosis, more likely treatment is to be successful”)
•Experienced symptoms of persistent heartburn, food sticking or indigestion - doesn’t matter if they have other symptoms as well, so long as the main one is either heartburn, food sticking or indigestion
•Went to GP (ie weren’t diagnosed via A & E. Doesn’t matter if they didn’t go straight away – we can always use their experience to reiterate the message that people should go to their GP if they have either symptom for three weeks or more)
•Good experience with NHS
•Have completed their treatment (fine if still going back for check-ups, but should not have had recurrence)
•Had their treatment within the NHS (i.e. they didn’t have private healthcare)
•Happy to have their story published (i.e give their name). Various options for media, depending on how comfortable the case study is with speaking to media eg TV and radio interviews; interviews with press journalists; no actual face to face contact (in this case we can write up their story, ideally with a picture, to send to journalists)
If anybody interested would care to contact me first (alanmoss32@gmail.com) I would pass your details on and somebody from the PR agency will then contact you. They are careful about releasing anybody's details to the press and will not do so unless you agree.
Case studies are a really key part of the campaign and an invaluable asset when speaking to media and encouraging public support. You do not have to be a media star to do this - just tell your story as if you were talking to a friend and it will come over very well.
I fall I to all these categories, I would be willing to write up my experience, but not appear on TV, if would help others deal with their heartburn and sticking food problems.
If you would like to write up your story, I am sure that it would be helpful for the OPA website 'Patient Stories' section. opa.org.uk/pages/patient-st...
If you care to email it to me at alanmoss32@gmail.com I will arrange it.
Thanks also to those of you who have kindly offered your stories. We have a fair range of different situations and circumstances and are most grateful for the offers.
The campaign is being run by PHE ie Public Health England. We are desperately keen for Scotland to do something similar (and Wales and Northern Ireland come to that). If you would like to write to your Scottish MSP we would be most grateful. The UK has the highest rate of oesophageal adenocarcinoma in the world, and parts of Scotland have the highest rates within the UK, so persuading Scotland to take some action is really important.
I already did this for the pilot campaign in Hertfordshire in 2013. Would encourage others to do the same.
Many thanks for these offers. May I encourage you to email direct to Julia Flint from Freuds PR? Her email is Julia Flint <julia.flint@freuds.com> Or if you email me direct at alanmoss32@gmail.com I will pass it on to Julia.
Well done Alan for getting this out there and well done everyone for responding, so many offers to get involved is fantastic, and so many stories to be told can only help in ensuring the campaign will be a success.
It would be very worthwhile getting all the stories down on paper to help future patients in understanding our journeys and our ways of coping with everyday life after treatment.
We are all on slightly different pathways going the same way, crossing over other paths and some times walking the same path for while will certainly help others just starting on their journey.
No idea how or who to do this yet...
Kind regards,
Dave C
We do have a good number of volunteers now, for which the campaign is really grateful. Some of you are in various parts of the country where local / regional media outlets may well pick up on your story. The truth is that these things only get broadcast if there is somebody telling a human story that the audience can relate to, so thanks again.
There is a page on the OPA website 'Patient Stories' and this would be a good place to record different experiences. opa.org.uk/pages/patient-st...
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