To raise awareness of several projects and initiatives in the community and to support NHS England’s agenda of detecting cancer at an early stage, the West Yorkshire Liver Care ODN team have been stars on TV and Radio.
In December 2024, our ODN Clinical Lead and Leeds Teaching Hospitals Consultant Hepatologist, Dr Mark Aldersley featured on Fever FM, Leeds first Asian radio station, to promote liver health. Dr Aldersley was interviewed by the radio station’s doctor, Mo Sattar to discuss what listeners could do to improve their liver health and lower their risk of liver cancer.
Since November, the ODN has been running an advertisement campaign with Fever FM to discuss Hepatitis C and the Hepatitis C self-testing portal. The advert has been running in 3 different languages, Punjabi, Urdu and English to help reach several community members. Supporting this, Dr Aldersley discussed the risk of Hepatitis C and how the virus can be tested for and treated easily.
In conjunction with the advertisement for the Hepatitis C Self Test Portal, Fever FM ran a campaign to encourage their listeners to ‘Name one way you can improve your liver health’. The winner of the competition, Mr Molik Miah, won £100 and gave the answer, “Maintain a healthy liver by eating a balanced diet, staying hydrated, exercising regularly, limiting alcohol, avoiding unnecessary medications, and not smoking.” Congratulations Molik!
You can listen to Dr Mark Aldersley’s interview on 21 December on Fever FM’s website.
On 2 January, BBC Breakfast was also involved in raising awareness of ‘Cancers getting diagnosed at earlier stage’ and featured a section on the West Yorkshire Liver Care ODN’s Liver Buddies Team and mobile clinic vehicle, affectionately known as ‘O-Liver’ in Bradford.
Consultant Hepatologist, Dr Richard Parker from Leeds Teaching Hospitals gave an interview on how important taking care of your liver is and how our mobile scanning unit is available free of charge in the community to detect early liver damage. Our Viral Hepatitis team, Nurse Associate Practitioner, Jo Hitchings was also shown giving a Fibroscan to a member of the public.
Dr Parker said, “The focus on the community detection programmes from national news is really helpful, as it allows us to raise awareness about liver disease. Liver disease can be silent for a long time, so the more people who come forward for scanning increases the chance of offering treatment when it can be effective.”
We have the BBC segment on our website in case you missed it.
Watch the Liver Buddies Segment on BBC Breakfast (Opens in a new window) (14MB mp4)
Since appearing on the BBC, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of enquiries made relating to accessing liver screening, not just to ourselves. LTHT switchboard, hepatology outpatients and the British Liver Trust, who received hundreds of calls to their helpline, have all been contacted. We received enquiries from as far afield as London and Somerset.
