Supporting physical health early interventions for our patients
Recently, our Smokefree and Health Check Liaison team worked in collaboration with Guy’s and St Thomas’, South East London Cancer Alliance and InHealth to bring the national lung cancer screening programme to our patients with Serious Mental Illness (SMI).
The Lung Cancer screening programme is open to anybody aged 55-74, who has ever smoked. People who respond to invitations from GPs are screened, and those identified as high-risk are invited to the mobile lung scanner unit.
However, it’s been shown that individuals with a mental illness are less likely to access the screening programme and will experience exacerbated existing inequalities as a result.
Smoking is widely accepted as the leading cause of lung cancer and people living with a mental illness are more likely to smoke. Prevalence across our services is estimated to be 37%, compared to the latest London-wide average of 10.2%.
In addition, although not reporting on causal links, a recent study by King’s Health Partners found that lung cancer was the highest recorded cause of cancer mortality over a five-year period for people with SMI in South East London.
On Monday 24th November, to reduce the challenges of access, a multi-agency partnership planned a special day to position South-East London’s mobile lung health scanner next to the Maudsley Outpatients to bring care directly to the at-risk people we serve.
Ray McGrath, Smokefree Healthy Hospital Programme Lead at South London and Maudsley, said: “This is a brilliant example of what we can achieve when working collaboratively with other organisations. Despite this being a national screening programme, patients from disadvantaged backgrounds – people with SMI and people who are homeless or live in hostels, for example – are less likely to attend these appointments. But by bringing the screening to our site, it’s enabled us to reach out to those people and offer it to those who wouldn’t normally engage in this kind of programme.”
On the day, patients were offered extended, personalised appointments with input from professionals working in the cancer screening programme, GSTT and SLaM, to help ensure they were comfortable, understood what was being asked of them, and knew who and how they might be contacted about their results.
‘Walk-in’ appointments were also offered, unlike usual sessions which are pre-booked. Early findings from the day have shown that none of the ‘walk-ins’ were previously known to the programme, meaning they have been missed off until now. We also found that 70% of individuals screened were identified as high-risk and qualifying for a scan, compared to 40% of people via the usual pathway.
Vicky Stewart, Senior Programme Manager at the South East London Cancer Alliance, said: It’s been great to work with South London and Maudsley on an event like this to offer lung cancer screening to their patients. We want to target patients who might be at higher risk of lung cancer. Screening the population in this way means we can diagnose lung cancer at a much earlier stage with more treatment options. This programme is a great example of combatting the inequalities in healthcare for those with struggling with their mental health.”
As a one off, the pilot was a huge success, and a first of its kind for people with SMI. It has provided confidence that this work is worth repeating, and there are now plans in progress for quarterly returns to the Maudsley site, as well as improving the intervention so that even more people can benefit.
For more information on Lung Cancer Screening in South East London, please visit:
If you are interested in this project and would like to be involved the next time the lung cancer scanner visits SLaM in 2026, please contact:
- Emily Armstrong – Service Lead, Health Check Liaison Team: emily.armstrong@slam.nhs.uk
- Ray McGrath – Smokefree & Healthy Hospital Programme Lead: smokefreeready@slam.nhs.uk
