Olubukola Ayodele, Breast Cancer Lead and Consultant Medical Oncologist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, shared on LinkedIn:
“Some of the most important work we can do to improve cancer outcomes will never happen inside a hospital.
I had the privilege of giving the closing keynote at the 3rd Institute for Excellence in Healthcare event on the 9th of September at the University of Leicester.
My talk was titled
‘Beyond the Hospital Walls: Engaging Communities to Tackle Cancer Inequalities.’
Cancer inequalities rarely begin when someone enters an oncology clinic.
They begin much earlier. In whether someone recognises a symptom. Whether they attend screening. Whether cancer is openly discussed in their community. Whether they trust the healthcare system. Whether information reaches them in a language and context that makes sense. Whether they can navigate an increasingly complex system.
These issues exist in different forms across the world and we cannot solve them entirely from our consulting rooms.This is why I have become increasingly intentional about taking cancer conversations beyond traditional healthcare spaces. I have sat in community centres talking about cancer with people who may never attend a hospital education event. I have worked with faith and community leaders, grassroots organisations and cancer champions.
Through Cancer Conversations CIC and my wider cancer inequalities work, I have seen what happens when healthcare meets people where they are.
People ask questions they may never ask in clinic.They tell you what they are frightened of. Why they did not attend screening. What they have heard about cancer.And importantly, they tell you what we could do differently.
Community engagement is not taking a beautifully designed leaflet into a community and calling it engagement. It’s listening before designing, it’s building relationships before asking for participation.It’s understanding barriers instead of blaming behaviour,it’s working WITH communities, not for them.
Wherever we work, we should be asking:
‘Who are we not reaching because we are waiting for them to come to us?’
Hospitals diagnose and treat disease.But we cannot prescribe trust, we cannot operate on misinformation, we cannot radiate social isolation. If we want earlier diagnosis, better screening uptake, representative research and equitable access to advances in cancer treatment, healthcare has to leave the building.The future of cancer innovation will not be judged only by what we discover but by WHO benefits.
The walls of our hospitals define where we work. They should never define the limits of our impact.
I’m grateful to the organisers for inviting me to share my thoughts and expertise.”
Other articles featuring Olubukola Ayodele on OncoDaily.
