12 2GM Monday August 3 2020 | the times
News
Reminding people to attend cancer
screenings via text message as well as
sending out letters could mean up to
7,800 extra cases of cancer being picked
up each year, according to a campaign.
Only 34 per cent of GP practices are
able to send text reminders to those in-
vited for cancer screenings. A cam-
paign has been launched urging the
NHS to adopt texts as the norm for such
reminders, claiming that it can increase
the uptake of cancer screening by 5.
per cent on average. This would mean
an extra 780,000 patients attending
screenings each year. The campaigners
said that about 1 per cent of screenings
detected an abnormality, which would
work out at 7,800 extra cases.
Experts have urged caution over the
7,800 figure, pointing out that in the
case of cervical cancer screenings the
smear test picks up abnormalities with-
in cervical cells that could potentially
lead to cancer, not the cancer itself, so
not every abnormality detected would
necessarily equate to a life saved.
The group behind the Remind Us
campaign is a private healthcare firm
that created the MyGP app, which al-
lows patients to book healthcare ap-
pointments, request repeat prescrip-
tions and access their medical records.
Analysing data from the screening
programmes for breast, bowel and cer-
vical cancer, the figures show that only
53 per cent of eligible people in London
attend screenings; in Manchester only
60 per cent do so; in Leicester 62 per
cent; and in Birmingham 53 per cent.
Less than 75 per cent attend screenings
in Southampton, Liverpool, Notting-
ham, Bristol, Newcastle and Leeds.
A study of almost 15,000 women in
Cancer patients will be switched to
“Covid-friendly” treatments that
require fewer hospital visits and have
less impact on their immune systems in
a £160 million NHS scheme.
The funding will go towards drugs
that lower a cancer patient’s risk of
contracting Covid-19 through existing
treatments that lead to a weakening of
their immune system or the need to
make frequent trips to hospitals, where
the risk of catching the virus can be
higher.
More than 2,000 people with cancer
have already benefited from the
programme, with 5,000 more expected
to have their drugs swapped by the end
of the year to protect them from the
virus.
Sir Simon Stevens, the chief execu-
tive of NHS England, said: “We are now
adopting new, kinder treatment op-
tions which are not only effective but
safer for use during the Covid-19 pan-
demic and more convenient for thou-
sands of patients, who can take medica-
tion at home or be given medicines with
less harmful effects on their immune
system.”
The health service has struck deals
with pharmaceutical companies to
make almost 50 treatments such as
enzalutamide for prostate cancer andlenalidomide for bone marrow cancer,
which are both hormone treatments,
more readily available as “swaps” for
existing drugs.
A spokesman said: “Some of these
new options mean that patients can
take tablets at home or receive medici-
nes with fewer side-effects instead of
undergoing hospital-based treatment
that can leave them more susceptible to
coronavirus and other infections.”
Other treatments to be made avail-
able under the scheme are venetoclax,
an oral alternative to chemotherapy for
those with acute myeloid leukaemia; ix-
azomib, an oral alternative to an injec-
tion-based course of treatment for my-
eloma; and atezolizumab, an immuno-
therapy treatment for bladder cancer
that can replace chemotherapy.Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of
Cancer Research UK, said: “This is en-
couraging news for some patients, who
could now go ahead with their treat-
ment when it might have previously
been on hold due to Covid-19.
“In recent years, successful price ne-
gotiations between the NHS and drug
manufacturers have significantly im-
proved patients’ access to new cancer
medicines but cancer doesn’t stop
because of a pandemic so it’s fantastic to
see this work continuing throughout
this difficult period.
“Steps like this to adapt the care
patients can be offered together with
the creation of Covid-protected safe
spaces, will be critical in minimising the
impact on people with cancer and
ensuring their survival.”F
orecasters are
predicting a
heatwave and
temperatures of
up to 37C this
week as hot air sweeps
in from the Continent
(Jack Malvern and
Adam Sage write).
The Met Office
suggested that Friday or
Saturday might exceed
the 37.8C reached last
week, the hottest day of
the year and the third
hottest since the record
began in 1865.
While most of Britain
is expected to have
temperatures in the high
20s, London and the
southeast are predicted
to settle at 35C to 37C.
The Met Office said
that Britain could pass
the threshold for a
heatwave, defined as
three days of
temperatures over 25C
across most of the UK
and 28C in London.
Warm air is surging
north from France,
where a fire broke out in
Chiberta forest park, in
the southwest of the
country. Thermometers
are understood to have
recorded 45.7C in Velez-Malaga in Spain,
provisionally the highest
temperature in Europe
this year. Large parts of
Italy recorded
temperatures above 40C.
In Britain people
flocked to the coast. The
UK coastguard reported
329 callouts on Friday,the highest number for
four years. Incidents
included people cut off
by the tide and reports
of missing children.
A man died yesterday
after getting into
difficulty off Barmouth,
Gwynedd, north Wales
police said. On Saturdaya man in his forties died
after being pulled from
the sea near Porthcurno,
Cornwall. A coastguard
helicopter, rescue teams
and an RNLI lifeboat
were searching last
night after a person
went missing off East
Sussex. Coastguardofficials said that a
person was seen going
into the water from a
kayak off Hove Lagoon,
near Brighton. The craft
and a paddle were later
found on the shore.
There was a brawl on
Brighton seafront and
police dispersed illegalparties in London and
the Forest of Dean in
Gloucestershire.
Residents in Cornwall
asked tourists to go
home. Adam Paynter,
deputy leader of
Cornwall council, said
that residents feared an
outbreak of Covid-because visitors were
behaving irresponsibly.
He told LBC radio
station: “I’ve heard two
different incidents
where people have been
overheard saying: ‘Well,
I’m not going to wear a
mask. I came down here
to get away from all of
that.’ That’s pretty
ignorant.”
Photographs taken in
Brighton showed two
women on the ground
fighting while a security
guard stood by holding a
tuft of fake hair he had
grabbed while trying to
separate them.
A witness said:
“Drinkers and
bystanders began
cheering and clapping
and people were filming
the fight on phones.”
Gloucestershire police
reported working
through the night to
close down a rave in a
car park near Lydbrook.
In Archway, north
London, police broke up
a house party at a
property rented through
Airbnb. Video shows
people in the garden of
the terrace house not
wearing masks or
socially distancing.
Weather, page 49Heatwave
on the way
as Europe
hits 45.7C
People jumped into the
sea in Barcelona to cool off
as temperatures exceeded
40C across parts of Spain
and Italy. The hot weather
is moving north to BritainENRIC FONTCUBERTA/EPAText reminders boost cancer screening
Kaya Burgess London led by Imperial College
London showed that text messages led
to a 5 per cent increase in uptake. Based
on these findings, the NHS rolled out
text reminders across London for a six-
month trial in late 2018 and it resulted
in a 4.8 per cent increase in women at-
tending smear tests, amounting to
13,400 extra women having tests.
Ivo Vlaev, a professor of behaviour
science at Warwick Business School
who was an author on the Imperial
screening texts study, said after the
results were published: “We very much
hope the rest of the country imple-
ments this revolutionary behavioural
approach as soon as possible.”
The MyGP company said that about
85 per cent of adult patients had given
their consent to getting texts from their
GPs and that it would cost £2.5 million
per year to send texts for each of the
three national screening programmes.
Abby Morris, founder of the Bowel
Movement campaign to tackle bowel
cancer, said: “Cancer screenings have
dropped by around 80 per cent during
the pandemic, which has had a drastic
impact on the ability to detect and diag-
nose individuals with bowel cancer,
with many people not wishing to
burden the NHS during this time. This
timely campaign is therefore crucial for
boosting uptake and attendance at vital
screening appointments.”
An NHS spokeswoman said: “NHS
screening programmes save around
9,000 lives every year. However, as
people live increasingly busy lives,
screening appointments need to be as
simple and convenient as possible so
text messaging options can help along-
side our ‘Help us, Help you’ campaign
encouraging people to seek help for
urgent health needs.”
Treatments
tailored for
patient safety
Kaya BurgessCase study
C
arl, 48, has
been
switched to
nivolumab
to treat his
bowel cancer, which
was caused by Lynch
syndrome, a
hereditary condition
that causes one in 30
cases of the disease
(Kaya Burgess writes).
He had undergone
major surgery and
then several courses
of chemotherapy,
which left him feeling
tired and sensitive to
the cold and suffering
from stomach crampsprefers not to give his
full name, now has to
visit the hospital once
a month rather than
attending nine times
during every two-
week course of
chemotherapy. He no
longer needs to take
steroids, anti-sickness
pills or diarrhoea
medication.
“The risk has
reduced as I am not
going to hospital so
much and it means
less travelling time
and fewer trips to the
petrol station to fill up
the car,” he added.and diarrhoea. He
was given the all-clear
but his cancer
returned. At the start
of the lockdown in
March he was offered
the chance to enter a
clinical trial for
nivolumab.
“Switching to
immunotherapy has
made a positive
difference with
considerably less side
effects, which is
enabling me to enjoy
a higher quality of
life,” he said.
Carl, from Buxton
in Derbyshire, who