NHS issues plea to smokers past and present

NHS chiefs are pleading with smokers past and present to go for a lung cancer check-up. It comes as hundreds were diagnosed with the disease in mobile trucks. The NHS says teams helped diagnose 600 people with the disease in trucks that had been travelling the United Kingdom.

They stopped at convenient community sites such as supermarkets and sports centres. The aim is to make it easier for people to access check-ups, reports the Echo. The campaign comes as new figures show just over a third (35%) of patients go to their lung health checks when invited by the NHS.

Those most at risk of lung cancer, like former or current smokers, are invited for a “Lung MOT” in the trucks, says the NHS. Those who are at highest risk will also be given an on-the-spot chest scan. The trucks are especially travelling to areas of the country with some of the highest death rates from lung cancer.

The teams have also identified thousands of people with other undiagnosed conditions including respiratory and cardiovascular disease, enabling them to access the treatment they need earlier. The community initiative, which is part of the NHS Targeted Lung Health Check Programme, has seen more than three quarters (77%) of cancers caught at either stage one or two, giving patients a much better chance of beating the illness. This compares to less than a third of cancers caught at either stage one or two in 2018.

The health service said so far, 23 existing truck sites have issued up to 25,000 invitations every month. A further 20 NHS lung trucks are set to go live shortly. This means they will be able to invite 750,000 more people at increased risk for a check, in an effort to catch thousands more cancers at an earlier stage.

The NHS estimates that 7,700 cases will be caught earlier by 2024-25 after as many as 1.5 million people will have been invited for a lung health check. Dame Cally Palmer, NHS cancer director, said: “These lung checks can save lives – by going out into communities we find more people who may not have otherwise realised they have lung cancer – with hundreds already diagnosed and hundreds of thousands due to be invited. The trucks are conveniently located to make them easy to access and it is vital that as soon as you are invited, you take up the offer and come forward for these potentially life-saving checks.

“The rollout of our Targeted Lung Health Check Programme is a huge step towards reaching our NHS Long Term Plan ambitions of catching thousands more cancers at an earlier stage when they are easier to treat.”