BCSP Annual Conferences

The BCSP Health Promotion team in partnership with other health services have held five Lancashire Bowel Cancer Screening Programme Conferences.

The ethos behind each conference has been to address how inequalities impact on the BCSP, share good practice and evidenced completed pieces of work that have increased the uptake of the National Bowel Screening Programme.

Involving Communities – Increasing Uptake Conference
‘Examples of Bowel Screening initiatives across the North West’

10th October 2017 – Held at the Gujarat Hindu Society & Community Centre Preston

National, Regional, & Local Speakers shared examples of good practice to help increase cancer screening programmes in local communities!

The audience included Commissioners, Primary & Secondary Care Leads, Cancer Clinicians, GP’s and GP Practice Teams from across the North West.

Together Against Cancer Conference 2018

3rd October 2018 – Held at the Gujarat Hindu Society & Community Centre Preston

Name of Speaker	Organisation	Presentation
Billie Moore (Chair)	Regional Head of Quality Assurance (North)	Welcome and Introduction & National Perspective
Steve Smith	Director Midlands & NW Bowel Cancer Screening Hub	Regional Screening Hub
Linda Syson-Nibbs	Consultant in Public Health / Head of QA Midlands and East PHE Screening	PHE Screening Division Inequalities Strategy
Q&A/Table Discussions
Kerry Crooks / Kathryn Jones	NHS England	Local perspective & Inequalities
Shahida Hanif & Sadiq Patel	Lancashire BCSP – CFAKC Project	Call for a Kit Clinic Project update
Taher Qassim and Gavin	Liverpool John Moores University/PH	Liverpool Inequalities and BCS
Q&A/ Table Discussions
Dr Neil Smith	BwD cancer/McMillian Lead GP	Engaging primary care in bowel cancer screening
Gail Curry TBC	Bowel Cancer UK	“
Q&A/ Table Discussions
Natalie Williams	CRUK	Be a cancer hero’ – non-clinical practice cancer champions in Lancashire and South Cumbria
Julie Tucker	North East and Cumbria Learning Disability Network	Improving bowel cancer screening for people with a learning disability.
Mike Larking / Phil Byrne	Cheshire and Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service	Cheshire and Merseyside Fire & Rescue Services/Rugby Hub BCSP project
Final Remarks & Close

Bowel Cancer Screening Programme – Back to Basics Conference

10th October 2019 – Held at the Gujarat Hindu Society & Community Centre Preston

National, Regional & Local Presentations Included:

Bowel Cancer Screening Pathway
New FIT Implementation/Progress
Operation/Screening Timeline
Screening Specialist Practitioners – Clinics, Processes, Colonoscopies
Inequalities/Challenges in Lancashire

Sharing Good Practice – Project Updates from:

Lancashire Bowel Cancer Screening Programme – Health Promotion Team
Cancer Research UK
BCSP within Primary Care

The Audience included Primary Care Cancer Champions, Cancer Commissioners, Primary and Secondary Care Leads, Cancer Clinicians, GP’s, GP Practice Teams, Cancer Charities, Cancer Community Groups, LA Neighbourhood officers and Public Health professionals from across Lancashire.

The 2017, 2018 & 2019 events in total engaged with over 300 individuals from across the Northwest/England.

“Reducing BCSP inequalities within communities – Hard to reach or easy to ignore…”

4th October 2022 – Held at DeVere’s Village Hotel Blackpool

National, regional, and local speakers delivered various presentations addressing how inequalities impacted on the BCSP. Sharing good practice projects were presented by the BCSP and partners.

Presentations:

Two new BCSP health promotion products were launched at the event:

The new midi size inflatable bowel. This resource helps the team engage with local communities and interactively raise awareness of the BCSP.
The BCSP E-Learning training package aimed at raising awareness of bowel cancer and the BCSP amongst front line staff in local organisations in Lancashire https://rise.articulate.com/share/uIqVyHvxgV0YoEvaR0BzTO-vbxk925Tb#/

Great evaluations and feedback were received from the delegates with some key suggestions for next year’s event.

Feedback:

“We were very impressed by the amazing work done by the Lancashire BCSP Team and their passion and commitment in tackling this urgent topic. The work demonstrated throughout the conference showed how they moved their programme from strategy to reality and the success they have achieved. Well done!”

BCSP Community Event/Conference

3rd October 2023 – Held at The Chai Centre Burnley

The Lancashire BCSP Health Promotion Team held a large community event in Burnley in place of the Annual BCSP Conference. The aim of this event/conference was to raise awareness of the BCSP and Bowel Cancer within low uptake communities.

The conference was opened by The Mayor of Burnley, followed by presentations on the support and developments taking place in Burnley by the CEO of Burnley Council and a Council Leader for the area. All these speakers had received information on the BCSP and included the importance of bowel screening in their presentations.

Included in the day were drama’s delivered by Meladrama – Learning Disability Drama Group, BWA – Drama Group and presentations by Veterans in the Community and The Black Afro Caribbean Community, all these focused on the outcomes of the BCSP Inequality Community Engagement projects that the team had worked on from the previous 12 months.

100+ people attended, of whom the main proportion were men from the Bengali and Pakistani community. All attendees were encouraged to take a tour of the Inflatable Bowel, access health checks and take part in sewing, henna painting and art and craft sessions.

Dr Naheed from Thursby Surgery, one of the practices where the team hold CFAKC’s closed the event.

National Conference

19th October 2018 – Venue: InterContinental Hotel – Vienna, Austria

WEO Colorectal Cancer Screening Committee
WEO Coalition to Reduce Inequities in CRC Screening

Shahida Hanif – BCSP Health Promotion Specialist and Sadiq Patel – BCSP Health Promotion Team Lead were invited to showcase the work that the BCSP HP Team deliver across Lancashire & South Cumbria at the WEO Colorectal Cancer Screening Conference. A range of presentations were delivered that both illustrated the problem of inequalities in colorectal cancer screening and showcased examples of activities and strategies to reduce them.

Agenda

08:00 Overview and updates
08:10 Improving access to CRC screening in vulnerable populations (Winson Cheung, Canada)
08:25 Development and pilot-testing of a Colorectal Cancer Screening Decision Aid for individuals with low health literacy (Mirjam Fransen, Netherlands)
08:40 Update of the Yorkshire bowel scope screening uptake project (Lesley McGregor, England)
08:55 Interventions to increase uptake in central London (Andrew Prentice and Robert Kerrison, England)
09.10 Lancashire Bowel Cancer Screening Programme: Call for a Kit Clinic (CFAKC) project- “Community engagement with a clinical twist” (Shahida Hanif & Sadiq Patel, England)
09:25 Closing remarks and discussion

Lesley McGregor
Shahida Hanif
Christian von Wagner
Sadiq Patel

Robert Kerrison
Andrew Prentice
Sadiq Patel

Sadiq Patel
Shahida Hanif
Lesley McGregor

Last update: Wednesday 26th November 2025

Involving Communities – Increasing Uptake Conference ‘Examples of Bowel Screening initiatives across the North West’