Bowel cancer campaign
For information about bowel cancer symptoms for the public, check out our webpage
Public awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer can support timely presentation in primary care and drive earlier diagnosis. Be Clear on Cancer (BCOC) campaigns were carried out to raise awareness of key symptoms of cancer and encourage people to go to their GP without delay.
Why were the campaigns run?
The Be Clear on Cancer campaign aimed to raise awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer, and to encourage people who have key symptoms to go to their GP without delay. The first regional pilot ran from January to March 2011 and then nationally for the first time from January to March 2012.
The strategy for the campaign, including implementation information and messages can be found in these campaign slides.
A 'reminder' campaign ran in the summer of 2012 to keep the message front of mind. Following that, three areas of England (North London, North East London, North West England and Yorkshire) piloted approaches to keep the campaign running from October 2012 to March 2013.
Who did the campaigns target?
Men and women from lower socioeconomic groups over the age of 55, and the people who influence them, such as friends and family.
What were the key messages?
The campaign highlighted two key symptoms of bowel cancer: See your doctor straight away if, for the last three weeks, you’ve had blood in your poo or looser poo.
The aim of the campaign was to encourage more people with these symptoms to go and see their GP earlier. The word “poo” was used after testing with the target audience found this was the most commonly used term.
How were the campaigns evaluated?
Access findings from the NHS regional pilot.
The initial findings following the first national campaign in 2012 were positive, finding:
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an increase in referrals for the over 50s (more than 85% of the referrals in February to March 2012 were in people aged 50 or over).
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statistically significant increases in the public’s unprompted awareness of blood in poo (27% to 42%) and looser poo (10% to 23%).
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statistically significant increase in the public’s confidence in knowing the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer.
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an increase in urgent referrals to hospitals compared to the same period in the previous year.
Peer reviewed publications
The impact of national cancer awareness campaigns for bowel and lung cancer symptoms on sociodemographic inequalities in immediate key symptom awareness and GP attendances (Moffat et al., 2015) investigates the impact of the Be Clear on Cancer national bowel and lung cancer campaigns. The paper looks at public awareness and GP attendance with symptoms highlighted in the campaigns on samples of the population sub-grouped by gender, age and socioeconomic status.
Change in public awareness of symptoms and perceived barriers to seeing a doctor following Be Clear on Cancer campaigns in England (Power and Wardle, 2015) looks at existing data from the Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) to examine the impact of the Be Clear on Cancer campaigns on public awareness of key symptoms of lung and bowel cancer and perceived barriers to seeing a doctor.