Welcome to the our March update, where we take you through what’s been happening Inside OUTpatients over the past month.
Our first Community Conversation of the year
On February 26th, we held our first Community Conversation focusing on the theme of LGBTIQ+ identity, health, and faith.
For many people, a cancer diagnosis is a life-changing moment. It can bring up some of the most complicated and difficult questions around life, death, and meaning. At times like this, many people turn to their faith or their religious community for support.
But for many LGBTQ+ people with cancer, faith can be complicated. It can be a source of comfort, strength and community. But it can also be a place where people have faced hurt or rejection.
In this Community Conversation, we brought people from different faith communities together to talk about these complicated experiences. We hope these conversations offer a rare space for people to feel heard. We also hope they help improve support for LGBTQ+ people of faith who are affected by cancer.
We will be hosting more Community Conversations on different themes over the coming months. Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you’re the first to hear about them!
Redbridge Rainbow Event
On the 7th of March, we attended the Redbridge Rainbow Community spring gathering to connect with attendees across Redbridge, and and increase the charity awareness in within the local community.
As part of the event, we held a session on cancer awareness. As well as offering information tailored to community needs, we asked about what attendees wanted to see in our work and the direction of the charity.
We want all of our work to be informed by LGBTIQ+ people across the country. Events like this are one way we stay in dialogue with the community.
If you would like OUTpatients to speak at or attend an event you are organising, please get in touch with us by emailing contact@outpatients.org.uk.
More episodes of the OUTspoken podcast
We have now published two episodes of our new podcast, with the next due out this Friday.
In our upcoming episode, we hear about the complicated experience of being both a patient and a healthcare professional. We also explore how being a transmasculine person can impact the experience of breast cancer in both positive and negative ways.
You can listen to our first two episodes now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Make sure to follow and rate the podcast so you don’t miss new releases.
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer
On Tuesday 3rd March, we headed to parlaiment for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer (APPGC). This event brought together MPs, charities, and people with lived-experience of cancer to speak about the newly launched Cancer Plan, and share what it meant for our communities.
This was an opportunity to speak directly with parliamentarians about cancer inequalities for LGBTIQ+ people, and explore how the Cancer Plan can be used to improve care for our community.
We shared that we were pleased to see progress on screening disparities, access to clinical trials, modifiable risk factors (i.e. drinking and smoking), and improving workforce training. However, we also flagged that the focus on LGBTIQ+ people needed to extend beyond screening and prevention. We face barriers in care across the pathway, and want to see our community brought into decision making at every stage as the Plan is rolled out.
New report on Patient Reported Outcome Measures
LGBTQ+ cancer patients’ sexual wellbeing with and beyond cancer is often overlooked or under-explored in clinical care.
Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) help us to understand patients’ sexual wellbeing. But how do LGBTQ+ patients feel about them, and are the ones we currently use the right tools for this community?
OUTpatients conducted insight groups with our our community to get their thoughts on the most common sexual wellbeing PROMs used in cancer. We then summarised the findings in this new report. You can read no to find more on patient’s views, experiences, and recommendations to improve the use of psychosexual PROMs for LGBTQ+ cancer patients.
Building on our pelvic health webinar series
We recently delivered a webinar series focusing on pelvic health with and beyond cancer. This 5-part series was developed with clinical staff from St George’s, The Royal Marsden, and leading private practitioners, with additional support from RM Partners.
Around 350 people attended, with 100% saying they would recommend the series to a colleague. When asked to rate the series overall, participants gave it an average of 4.8/5.
Due to their success, we will be converting the content into an online course so that more people can access it.
It’s coming soon, so keep an eye out!
New volunteers
We have had a great intake of volunteers recently, with new people signing up to take support our policy, community engagement, and peer support research.
Volunteers play a huge part of our work at OUTpatients. We are a small team making a big impact across the cancer pathway, and are always looking for enthusiastic people to help us press for change.
If you are interested in volunteering or fundraising with us, then we would love to hear from you.