NHS TARGETED LUNG HEALTH CHECKS - COVENTRY AND RUGBY ROLLOUT

Area(s) of focus: Prioritising prevention and wider determinanats to protect the health & wellbeing of people and communities, Improving access to services especially primary care

Why change was needed 

Lung cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer in the UK and often there are often no signs or symptoms of lung cancer at an early stage.

It has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers which is largely attributed to lung cancer being diagnosed at a late stage when treatment is much less likely to be effective. Treating cancer early improves people’s chance of survival with 60% of people currently surviving stage 1 cancer for 5 years or more, compared with just 4% if treated at stage 4.

If we want to catch lung cancer early, then a proactive screening programme that targets those at higher risk of developing lung cancer is essential. 

What we did

As part of the national Targeted Lung Health Check programme, we rolled out targeted lung health checks to eligible people in Coventry and Rugby.

People who were registered at participating GP practices, that were aged 55-74 and have a history of smoking were invited to attend a lung health check. Initially, they were given a phone appointment with a Targeted Lung Health Check nurse who asked them a series of questions to determine their risk of developing lung cancer using an approved risk assessment tool.

Those participants who were deemed to be high risk were then invited to attend a mobile unit, that was stationed in convenient, community locations, where they were given a low-dose CT scan to see if we could detect any potential signs of lung cancer.

If there was an area of concern that showed up on the scan, patients were then referred onto the relevant service for further treatment. If no concerns were highlighted, patients were invited back for a low dose CT scan in 2 years until they ‘age out’ of the screening programme.

Outcomes 

The Targeted Lung Health Check programme in Coventry and Rugby has so far carried out over 28,000 lung health checks and just over 11,000 of these have resulted in patients being referred for a low dose CT scan.

This has increased the early detection of lung cancer from 20% before the programme launched to 77.2%, making a massive impact on the NHS’s ability to identify and treat lung cancer and dramatically increasing patients’ chances of survival.

What’s next

Following the success of the Coventry and Rugby programme, Targeted Lung Health Checks are now being rolled out to North Warwickshire over the course of the next 21 months – with the first patients receiving their invites in the week commencing the 8th July.

There is a further rollout to South Warwickshire scheduled for 2026.

Impact Example

David Assheton, who lives in Rugby, is one of the patients who was invited for a lung health check. Watch the video below to hear about his experience of a lung health check and how it helped diagnose his lung cancer at a very early stage.