Prostate team screen 2,000th patient | Latest news

Prostate team screen 2,000th patient

Miss Jyoti Shah and Sarah Minns

Two clinicians who run a voluntary prostate cancer health check programme in their free time have recently checked their 2,000th patient.

Miss Jyoti Shah, Macmillan Consultant Urological Surgeon, and Sarah Minns, Macmillan Urology Advanced Nurse Practitioner, have been carrying out checks for prostate cancer in the community since 2016 and have now screened 2,000 men, diagnosing 69 case of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer among men, with the lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer in Caucasian men at one in eight with more than 47,000 men diagnosed with the condition in the UK every year.

Miss Shah explained: “There is a stigma, embarrassment and fear around prostate cancer and mens’ health in general. If you present with cancer when it is too late, it is much harder to treat. Receiving the news that you have got cancer is very difficult to take.”

Nevertheless, the 26 screening sessions Miss Shah and Sister Minns have hosted in the past three years have attracted huge numbers of men to attend, with many more currently on waiting lists.

Miss Shah stated: “We are fully booked up until December 2019. Part of the success of the campaign may be that men are being seen in the community, such as at football and golf clubs, at weekends, taking away the fear of attending a hospital perhaps during working hours.

“We would encourage all men to get themselves booked in for a check.”

Sister Minns added: “We never realised how much we would achieve and how popular the campaign would become when we first started out. It really is quite an achievement. It’s nice that we’ve had lots of people come back and give us such positive feedback.”

The project has won the hearts and minds in the community, and Sister Minns was recently honoured with a Community Champions Award, while Miss Shah was made a Rotary International Fellow bestowed by the organisation’s President. Barry Rassin.

The service has strong partnerships with a wide range of organisations in the region, including sports clubs including Burton Albion Football Club, Chesterfield Town Football Club and Chesterfield Golf Club, as well as working with Rotary Clubs, Freemason Lodges, Derbyshire Police, places of worship and even a dedicated clinic for staff held at the hospital.

Now, as part of the expanding reach of the programme, the team will be holding a screening session at Rolls-Royce in Derby in July.

Sister Minns said: “Rolls-Royce is an international icon and we are really please to be working with them, and the session is already fully booked.”

Miss Shah added: “The company could have easily chosen any private company to carry out their screening, but for them to reach out to us is a huge accolade. We are very pleased.”

Find out more about fighting prostate cancer (opens in new window) >

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