The charity believes the awards scheme will provide the opportunity to share best practice with all professionals working in the field of cervical screening, as well as rewarding excellence for increasing awareness and uptake of cervical screening in local communities.
Robert Music, director of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust said, “We know there is fantastic and really creative work happening at a local level. We felt setting up and launching the awards would be the perfect way to highlight and reward that quality and, of course, share it, so that others can learn from the winners and take these examples back to their own communities.”
“Developing creative and targeted cervical screening education campaigns is still so very important. Twenty percent of women still do not take up their invitation to attend cervical screening, with uptake figures for women under 35 even worse where around one in three do not attend screening. What is also a worry is that the increase in screening attendance last year due to Jade Goody’s diagnosis with cervical cancer may already be going back to levels before Jade was diagnosed.”
Leading London medical expert
Cervical cancer is a largely preventable disease where people can take proactive steps to reduce risk. Anyone seeking the latest evidence based guidelines on diagnosing and treating cervical cancer should see the articles by UK leading medical expert Miss Adeola Olaitan.
