Superdrug has announced its partnership with leading gynaecological cancer charity The Lady Garden Foundation and will now be promoting a gynaecological cancer awareness programme across all of its 80 UK health clinics.
Actress and comedian Emily Atack will help launch the new initiative with the ‘Love Your Lady Garden’ campaign, to help spread awareness to women around the UK.
30%* of women under the age of 50 do not attend their cervical screening appointments and over 7,500 women die each year of gynaecological cancers.
Symptom awareness and early diagnosis are vital to save lives. The aim of the partnership is to encourage conversations and give insights on the five gynaecological cancers, how to spot the signs and symptoms early as well as promoting cervical cancer screening attendance.
The Lady Garden Foundation has trained Superdrug nurses & pharmacists running health clinics in what symptoms to look for, as part of this partnership.
The next time a patient attends an in-clinic service appointment, the Superdrug nurse or pharmacist will offer them a discussion on gynaecological cancers where they talk them through the five different gynaecological cancers.
Patients will also be offered a symptom tracker, designed to easily note down any signs or symptoms they experience, which they can then show to their GP.
Jenny Halpern Prince, Co-Founder and Chair at The Lady Garden Foundation said, “We are excited to announce our partnership with Superdrug as we hope to reach more women and create awareness amongst generations who aren’t talking about these issues.
By working with Superdrug’s trained nurses & pharmacists, we want to encourage people to not only attend their cervical screening tests but also help them with how to spot the signs and symptoms early of all five types of gynae cancers.”
The five different gynaecological cancers are cervical, ovarian, vaginal, vulval and womb (uterine). 58 women a day are diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer and 21 will sadly not survive.
There is no single screening test available for all of these cancers so the importance of understanding the symptoms and getting an early diagnosis is essential to save lives.
Often symptoms can be subtle and misattributed so having confidence in your own body and recognising when something isn’t right, is crucial.
Caris Newson, Head of Healthcare Services at Superdrug said, “Superdrug has 80 health clinics, and 1 in 3 women under 50, and 1 in 4 women over 50 are not attending their cervical screening in the areas where these Superdrug clinics are located.
At Superdrug we are passionate about encouraging an open dialogue with women to help them take proactive care of their Gynae health.
Building on our partnership with Coppafeel, we are absolutely delighted to be supporting The Lady Garden Foundation as we know how important it is to be comfortable talking about and knowing your body.
We and our qualified nurses & pharmacists hope this will be the start of more conversations and more checks around the UK.”
Partnership ambassador Emily Atack adds “I am thrilled to be part of the Love Your Lady Garden campaign.
This is such an important milestone for The Lady Garden Foundation and for thousands of women around the UK who will now have access to free consultations on their doorstep.
I’ve always been very confident and open when it comes to talking about my body, so I want to encourage other women to talk more openly about theirs too, especially their gynae health.
There’s still too little awareness around gynae cancers and the Love Your Lady Garden initiative will aim to make our ‘privates’ a little less private and more of a priority.”
(*Women aged 25-49, PHE England, Cervical Screening by CCG September 2020)