Cancer Factsheets for Healthcare Practitioners

Community pharmacies play an important role in reaching the NHS Long Term Plan target to increase the percentage of cancers diagnosed at stage 1 or 2 by 2028.

HEE commissioned an evaluation of the free online Let’s Communicate Cancer (LCC) course by the British Oncology Pharmacy Association (BOPA). The evaluation found that the course helped to increase the confidence and basic knowledge of community pharmacy colleagues to help cancer patients from early diagnosis to treatment. The evaluation also identified further resources that pharmacists and their teams may find helpful.

Based on these findings, the HEE London Pharmacy team collaborated with BOPA to produce a series of cancer factsheets, which can be used either as a standalone resource but also supports the Let’s Communicate Cancer course.

The first in the series of cancer factsheets aims to refresh the knowledge of common cancer diseases seen in a community setting and focuses on the following areas:

•    Red flag symptoms – what to look out for with cancers in general
•    Breast cancer
•    Lung cancer
•    Prostate cancer
•    Bowel cancer
•    Haematological malignancies

HEE and BOPA would like to acknowledge the support of the following Patient Advocacy Groups during the development of the first series of the cancer factsheets: Macmillan Cancer Support, Know Your Lemons, The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, Prostate cancer UK, Bowel cancer UK, Blood Cancer UK

Access Cancer Factsheets via BOPA here: https://www.bopa.org.uk/resources/?_sft_resource-tags=cancer-factsheet

Access Cancer Factsheets via HEE/NHS here: https://www.lasepharmacy.hee.nhs.uk/pharmacists/cancer-factsheets-for-healthcare-practitioners/