TIC-TOC

TIC-TOC (Targeted Intensive Community-based campaign To Optimise Cancer awareness) is a public awareness campaign designed to help people living in deprived communities recognise vague cancer symptoms.

Public awareness campaign

We have developed a public awareness campaign designed to help people living in deprived communities recognise vague cancer symptoms (e.g. persistent tiredness) and get advice from their GP. The six-month campaign will spread positive messages on local media including buses, radio and Facebook, and with trained cancer champions who will encourage people living in deprived communities to go to the GP with vague symptoms. We will test whether the campaign can be delivered, whether the public thought the campaign was acceptable, and whether the campaign reached people in the local community.

Assessing campaign success

We also need to find out whether we can collect the data needed for a future trial to test if the campaign works. This will include: how many patients agree to complete a questionnaire to measure how long they took from spotting a symptom to visiting the GP; whether we can access hospital data such as the number of patients referred for suspected cancer, and whether we can estimate the costs of the awareness campaign. Finally, we will bring together a group of experts to help us decide whether we should do a larger trial to test whether the campaign can encourage people to seek help sooner with vague symptoms. The findings will be used to improve cancer services in Wales and the UK.