Yorkshire Cancer Network - Pilot Raising Symptom Awareness of OC

[HumbleD]

Having just read a recent post on raising symptom awareness of OC, I thought I would share this news to provide some background information on a pilot that has been running in Leeds and Wakefield since January ending March 2013. The Department of Health have funded a pilot campaign to raise symptom awareness of OC in the two above cities through the Yorkshire Cancer Network. The company outsourced to do the campaign are a London based company called Kindred. The target audience has been women over fifty and the campaign has included coverage of the symptoms of OC on local radio and adverts have been placed in local newspapers. Women with OC were contacted by their CNS nurses to see if they wanted to get involved in local networking. I and many others with OC have been out attending events at local swimming pools, community centres to talk to women over fifty about the symptoms of OC. We have had posters, symptom awareness cards and leaflets to give out. I am sure that others could add to this post if they have been involved in the campaign in either Leeds or Wakefield. It may be that others are involved in other pilots. Lets hope that the pilot is successful and that the campaign will be rolled out nationally. The local campaign here has been similar to the one that has been running on bowel cancer. On a personal level it has been great to get involved with talking to women about the symptoms of OC as well as being with others in my peer support group known locally as WAGs.

[Whippit]

This is absolutely brilliant. It would be really helpful to know more about this. How the campaign started, how it was taken forward, etc. It's a model for all of us to lobby our local authority or MP to start the ball rolling across all the cities and regions of the UK.

I wonder if you'd mind if I sent you a PM to ask a few things so I can work out how this started - whether it was supported by a charity such as Ovarian Action, whether it was a decision of the local authority. Who are the key figures.

I'll send a PM - but meanwhile congratulations on getting invovled. I think you found as I do that doing something like this is very rewarding.

Best wishes. xxx Annie

[HumbleD]

Hi Annie,

Thank you for your response, there is a thank you event in a couple of weeks time that I am attending. I can try and get some answers to your great questions, I cannot answer them at the moment, although I may be able to start the ball rolling with Laura Greene who co-ordinated the campaign at Kindred. I am an Ambassador for Target Ovarian Cancer and I was initially contacted by them just before my CNS nurse contacted me, at the time Target, were not involved in the campaign.

Best Wishes,

Wendy

[wendydee]

Great campaign, Wendy. I work with another Wendy (Barker) who is a Target O ambassador, so its a www thing! I'd be interested in some of the answers that Annie asked for. Maybe we should get a group going to share ideas about awareness raising .... in time for next year probably?

Love Wendy xx

[HumbleD]

Hi Wendy,

This sounds like a very good idea, how do you suggest we get the group going and why wait for next year?

Love Wendy xx

[wendydee in reply to HumbleD]

I don't mind using my Inner Circle page (on here) to discuss any ideas, anyone can PM me and I will add them on but I will need email addresses.

And no reason to wait till next year. I was just thinking of OCAM, really. We can share fundraising/awareness raising hints from the patient perspective. Or would this cut across what you are doing, Ruth G or Louise?

Let me know what you think

Love W xx

[LouiseOvacome My Ovacome Team]

Hello All,

This is something that all the charities have been involved in. Ovacomes ROCs in the relevant areas have been involved and we have been advising both in Yorkshire and Thames Valley. It will be really interesting to see the results later in the year, and if positive we will be campaigning for a national campaign.

Well done to everyone on the work done so far!

Louise

[Hidden]

This sound really good, I have just read about the ovarian cancer charities working together on this on you can read about it on ocam.org.uk/

Best wishes love x G x

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Ps ..."ocam" ...stands for "ovarian cancer awareness month" it is good to see that the OC charities have come together xx

[HumbleD]

Thank you to everyone for filling us in with some helpful background information, very glad to hear that charities have been involved.

Love Wendy x