Bowel screening birthday card increases uptake

A bowel screening birthday card sent to eligible patients increased uptake by almost 20% in Warrington.

The card, sent to patients in Central and West Warrington PCN, said ‘Happy birthday to you, it’s nearly time to test your poo’, with a poo emoji on the front. Of those who received the card between May and August 2023, 18% more attended screening.

Dr Laura Mount, clinical director at the PCN, said she was initially sceptical about the initiative, foreseeing that she would get complaints from patients. But that her team had all loved the idea.

‘We’ve got a care coordinator who is very passionate about cancer screening and early cancer diagnosis and she wants to be on all the committees and has fabulous ideas,’ said Dr Mount.

‘She and a doctor decided that because the new ages were coming in in our area for the bowel screening – 54, 55 and 56 – they were going to send the patients a birthday card: happy birthday to you it’s time to test your poo.

‘Everyone said it was a fabulous idea and the group that had the birthday card, almost 20% more of them went to their screening.’

She added: ‘It’s just an example of believing the team and letting them try their ideas – within reason. Let them feel like they can suggest changes and empower them to have the skills to undertake transformation.’

The care coordinator, Becky Grady, said often screening communication can be quite lengthy with lots of information on it. But when she and GP Dr Wendy Lake came up with the idea, they wanted to make sure it was ‘short, sharp, sweet, and catches them straight away’.

‘We only put a little bit of the spiel inside the card itself, we didn’t want to overwhelm patients,’ said Ms Grady. ‘The reading age of our area is very low, and our PCN is an area with very high deprivation.’

It comes as Bowel Cancer UK is launching a campaign from this month (May 2024) to encourage people to speak to their GP if they are experiencing symptoms.

The campaign, called ‘tell your GP instead’, will run for nine months, and will ask patients to contact their GP for an at-home FIT test if they have symptoms. It will advertise across national press, ethnic media channels, local radio, out of home advertising and online, with the aim of reaching those least likely to contact their GP.