Special cancer screenings being held for Blackpool's homeless women
and live on Freeview channel 276
The Homeless Health Hub Nursing Service, which was launched in January last year, has a remit of offering health provisions to the ‘hard to reach’ members of the community who find it harder to access health care.
A small team of nurses and other professionals deliver this NHS service, which comes under the wider umbrella of the Fylde Coast Medical Services.
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Hide AdThe special cancer screening session is being staged next week, at The Bridge Project (Salvation Army Citadel premises) on Raikes Parade, on Wednesday March 30, between 9am and 12.30pm.
It will offer breast screening and cervical smears but will also provide much more.
As part of the service’s wider, holistic approach, there will also be nail-painting and pampering sessions, hot showers and refreshments laid on.
Although people who are homeless are not easy to contact, the team liaise with other agencies such as housing, homeless hostels and substance misuse services, to inform them of the various health sessions on offer.
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Hide AdThere is also a dedicated bus, parked at Bank Hey Street every Thursday, which offers a general health clinic to homeless men and women as part of the same service.
Kelly Gorrie, who is the project’s nursing lead, said: “It is an innovative service, the first one of its kind in the country.
"It was recognised that people who were homeless were just not accessing health services and this was proving detrimental to their overall health and wellbeing.
“People who are homeless don’t generally have a GP and because of their complex lives they would normally miss the contact from the national screening scheme available to most people.
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Hide Ad"There are other professionals who tend to have more contact with homeless people, so it made sense to work in partnership with them so we could reach those missing out.”
The Homeless Health Hub Nursing Service was set up as part of an initiative prompted by Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group, to fill in the gaps in health provision among those living on the margins in Blackpool and the wider Fylde coast.