Using Behavioural Science to Target Increased Uptake in Cancer Screening

Concepts

• cancer
• wakefield
• health services
• west yorkshire
• harrogate cancer alliance
• cancer screening
• behavioral science
• behavioural science
• uptake
• uptake of cancer screening

Location

West Yorkshire and Harrogate practice population

Description

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance and West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership, would like to utilise a model which has been developed to use behavioral science to target increased cancer uptake and specifically targets populations of inequality. This specific model has been rolled out in another area of the country and has seen increased uptake of cancer screening. The scope will be broadened to include all three screening programmes and cancer prevention indicators i.e. smoking cessation and healthy weight.

Total Quantity or Scope

Caja will utilise their sustainable model developed with (and successfully used within) South Yorkshire & Bassetlaw Cancer Alliance) to increase cancer screening uptake in West Yorkshire & Harrogate through primary care, starting in Bradford. Their model empowers stakeholders in behavioural science techniques and applies this to promotion of cancer screening uptake, targeting populations of inequality. They have increased cervical screening uptake in active practices in South Yorkshire by at least 25%. The scope in Bradford will be broadened to include all three screening programmes and cancer prevention indicators, such as smoking cessation and healthy weight.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 85100000 - Health services

Indicators

Legal Justification

Caja have already developed many of the materials needed for this project in a neighbouring area (South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw – SY&B), which provides increased value for money in WY&H: mapping the patient’s cancer screening journey for the cervical and breast programmes, a suite of behavioural science interventions to be tested in different practice populations and stakeholder workshop materials to educate staff about how to use behavioural science techniques. This has substantially reduced costs and allowed Caja to include the bowel screening programme in addition to prevention indicators, namely smoking cessation and healthy weight. This also speeds up the timeline of the project, and the proposed plan from Caja states the Bradford suite of interventions can be tested and ready by May 2021 with provisional results by June. Cancer Alliance modelling has shown that there are hundreds of ‘missed’ cancers in its region due to the COVID pandemic, some of which will be asymptomatic and could be diagnosed via screening; the Alliance must act quickly to find them and improve people’s chances of survival. As their SY&B project is currently underway, Caja will be using the live learning from this in WY&H as the project progresses. For example, the practices that have ‘gone live’ in SY&B have highly socio-economically deprived practice populations. The WY&H practices selected for the first pilots have similar practice populations and so the model and interventions used will be very similar (but will be tested locally to ensure they are as effective). The next SY&B practices to go live have high proportions of ethnic minorities in their practice populations, and the learning from this will be used to inform the expansion of the Bradford project into practices serving ethnic minorities who have lower screening uptake. Caja’s model involves the education of regional and primary care staff around behavioural science and its applications, providing crucial sustainability compared to ‘parachute projects’ where additional staff are acquired temporarily. The empowerment of the existing workforce means that these techniques can be employed beyond the timeline of this project and applied wider than cancer screening and prevention. The Alliance are already hearing examples from SY&B of where else they have used the techniques which have been learnt. As we emerge from the pandemic, we can no longer ignore health inequalities and this project will help us to reduce those inequalities related to cancer, whilst supporting screening programme restoration as per the NHS Phase 3 letter. In SY&B cervical screening uptake has increased in ‘live’ practices by at least 25%, which, if replicated in Bradford for all three programmes has the potential to reduce health inequalities by saving many lives through prevention and early diagnosis of cancer.