Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB is delighted to be working with our NHS colleagues in the Provider Collaborative along with partners from across local communities in being a Core20Plus5 accelerator site focussed on the framework priority of early cancer diagnosis.

The Core20PLUS Accelerator Sites is a new NHS England programme delivered in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the Health Foundation (HF). It is made up of seven accelerator sites which will help to develop and share good practice in healthcare inequalities improvement across integrated care systems (ICSs).

Focusing on the five clinical areas outlined in the Core20PLUS5 approach, the programme will seek to narrow health care inequalities for people living in the most deprived areas and individuals from ‘PLUS’ population groups including ethnic minority and inclusion health groups.

The seven accelerator sites are:

• Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS
• Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICS
• Humber and North Yorkshire ICS
• Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS
• Surrey Heartlands ICS
• Mid and South Essex ICS
• North Central London ICS

Our accelerator focus in Lancashire and South Cumbria is early cancer diagnosis, specifically working towards the target of 75% of cancer diagnoses being made at stage one and stage two by 2028.

Following an initial analysis of data, we have identified St Matthew’s ward in Preston as our starting point, based on the high levels of disadvantage experienced by the local population combined with higher levels of cancer mortality.

A further deepdive of data and – importantly – listening to insights from the local community, we have been able to further target our focus on working with the local Muslim population around cancer screening uptake, particularly for bowel screening. We are also incorporating approaches to how we improve knowledge and understanding of signs and symptoms of cancer among the local community.

This work is still in the early stages and we are looking forward to working with the local community to develop improvements, scaling up our work across Lancashire and Couth Cumbria, and to sharing learning with our fellow accelerator sites across the country.