Berkshire Cancer Centre reaches out to Pakistani women with life-saving awareness sessions

In the UK, more than 350,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year. However some global majority communities experience poorer outcomes for some cancers and are less likely to report a positive care experience compared to their white counterparts.

 

Last month, colleagues from the Berkshire Cancer Centre reached out to a group of women within the Pakistani community with the offer of cancer awareness and prevention sessions focusing on breast, gynaecological, colorectal cancers, and screening.

 

Dr Madhumita Bhattacharyya, Consultant Medical Oncologist in the Berkshire Cancer Centre led the session. And the resources, in Urdu and English, were co-developed by Dr Qurratulain and Dr Anil Babar, Specialist Registrars in Medical Oncology at the Trust, with the session itself delivered in Urdu, by Dr Qurratulain.

 

The aim was to make steps to break traditional hierarchical barriers and support the women attending to feel confident to ask for and access healthcare support at the earliest point. Nisha Sharma, one of our community cancer champions, and Dr Mary Tanay, Nurse Consultant at the Berkshire Cancer Centre were also on hand to answer any questions from attendees.

 

Dr Bhattacharyya said, 'It was a privilege to be involved in this event and to spend time with this group of women. We’ve had some lovely feedback and have been asked to come back and run more sessions and hope to extend this for other groups in the community. It’s great to know that we are supporting these women to have a voice in terms of their health, and that this is the start of an on-going relationship to make their access to healthcare more equitable.'

 

The team are grateful to Dr Shahid Sharif and his wife Farida for arranging this meeting and to the Royal Berkshire Charity and Mark Foulkes Lead Cancer Nurse for their support in delivering this session.