We may be living in uncertain times, but there is one thing we are certain of: awareness of leukaemia needs to be dramatically improved
Each year we reach millions of people with our spot leukaemia campaign but despite our efforts, awareness of blood cancer amongst the public, as well as in primary healthcare, is still dangerously low and blood cancer continues to claim more lives than prostate or breast cancer every year.
Currently, patients with leukaemia have a significantly higher rate of emergency diagnosis than other forms of cancer. The highest emergency presentation rates for any cancer type occur in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), at 66% of patients. This is a huge difference when compared with the overall cancer emergency presentation percentage (21%).
Unfortunately many people aren’t aware of the signs and symptoms of leukaemia until they or someone they know is diagnosed. This leads to a delay in visiting a GP, which can delay a diagnosis, worsening the outcomes for patients.
Quite often, due to the non-specific nature of the symptoms and relative rarity of leukaemia, people are misdiagnosed by their GP or attend several times before diagnosis. This means that there is a delay at primary healthcare.
We need your help in reaching out to help raise awareness of signs and symptoms so that everyone is able to Spot Leukaemia sooner.
Early diagnosis saves lives
How can you get involved with our Spot Leukaemia campaign leukaemiacare.org.uk/our-ca...
1. Support the campaign on social media!
Post on social media about our campaign, share our resources or share stories with the hashtag #SpotLeukaemia. Help raise awareness of the symptoms of leukemia by using our social media graphics and sharing these across your social media platforms.
Spot the Difference: Share your own before and after images for #SpotTheDifference. We want the public to know that you can look both ill and healthy at the time of a leukaemia diagnosis. That’s why it’s even more important to look out for the symptoms!
Share your Spotty Selfie to show your support in September. If you send us your selfie before World Leukaemia Day, you’ll be included in our World Leukaemia Day collage!
Anything you share on social media with the hashtags #SpotLeukaemia and #WorldLeukemiaDay will be shown on our live social media walls! Head over to our website during the month of September to see them.
Use our Instagram GIFs: a personalised spotty gif for your Instagram stories.
Use our Facebook frames: a personalised spotty frame for your profile picture!
2. Put on your spotty clothes to share the importance of knowing how to ‘spot’ the signs and symptoms of leukemia. Share your ‘spotty selfie’ on social media with the hashtag #spotleukaemia during blood cancer awareness month this September.
3. Take part in World Leukemia Dayleukaemiacare.org.uk/our-ca... on the 4th September on social media with the hashtags #WLD21 #worldleukemiaday, Help raise awareness of the symptoms of leukaemia by using our social media graphics and sharing these across your social media platforms. Download the World Leukemia Day resources here.
4. We’re launching a spotty challenge leukaemiacare.org.uk/our-ca... on the 1st of September to get YOU involved in Spot Leukaemia. There are many prizes to be won and different levels to complete, so you can choose to participate as little or as much as you want and still get a prize. However, the individual who does the most creative and boldest thing to raise awareness for Spot Leukaemia will win the biggest spotty surprise! Help us to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of leukaemia. You can choose to be a Spotty Sidekick, Spotty Star, or Spotty Superhero! Look at the graphic below to see what challenges you have to complete to win our special spotty prizes! Take on spotty challenge here.
Find out more about World Leukemia Day here leukaemiacare.org.uk/our-ca...
You can download all our resources here leukaemiacare.org.uk/our-ca...
