January Awareness Campaigns

Every month the Academy Medical Centre Patient Participation Group raises awareness about health and wellbeing.

The PPG would like to highlight the following in January:

• Cervical Cancer Prevention Week from 22-28 January 2024: Every day in the UK, 2 women lose their lives to cervical cancer and 9 more receive a life-changing diagnosis. HPV vaccinations, cervical screening, and treatment for cell changes can all help prevent cervical cancer. Read more about cervical cancer at NHS Inform, Cancer Research UK, and Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust. You can tweet and share using the tags #CervicalCancerPreventionWeek and #WeCan on social media. Share your experience, encourage others to take up the HPV vaccination and cervical screening. More resources and ideas for promotion and getting involved are available at https://www.jostrust.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/cervical-cancer-prevention-week. You can also visit Cancer Research UK: Cervical Cancer for information. If you have any symptoms that are unusual for you, please consult your GP who will carry out further tests.
• New year New You!: Challenge yourself this year by doing some new things to improve your wellbeing and health. For example, reduce your intake of alcohol and fizzy drinks, and improve your diet. Could you eat 30 plant-based foods a week? Or how about stopping smoking? Free support is available to help you succeed! Also, take up some of the offers at the community campus to keep yourself fit and healthy. Other things that can make a difference that don't cost much include a walk outdoors, meeting up with friends and jogging maybe.

You can get involved and raise awareness by talking about the campaigns, tweeting or sharing on social media, or by donating, fundraising and pledging your support to charity, or by simply by reaching out to others.

The Academy Medical Centre PPG has worked with the practice since 2010 to enhance the delivery of primary care services in a number of areas.

You can make a difference to the Practice too! To get involved or find out more about the work and how the PPG assists the practice and you, the patient, see the Academy Medical Centre PPG page. Notes of our meetings are also available to give you a real flavour of what we're doing.