Our blood cancer awareness campaigns
Despite blood cancer being the fifth most common type of cancer in the UK, around 76% of people aren’t told their condition is a type of blood cancer when they’re diagnosed. Many find out later when they 'Google' it ... or some may not find out at all.
Our 2023-2024 Annual Report at a glance
Raising blood cancer's profile
We started this year by gathering evidence and insight from people affected, to show why it’s important to raise the profile of blood cancer. And we took that evidence to Parliament on World Blood Cancer Day in May 2023.
Our amazing community rallied around as always to help spread the word and, on the day, Blood Cancer UK appeared more among blood cancer topics on social channels than any other blood cancer charity. Not only did we get a great response on digital channels, MPs also showed genuine interest in our plans.
Raise the profile of blood cancer
Despite being the fifth most common cancer and the third biggest cancer killer in the UK, blood cancer doesn’t receive the public profile of other common cancers. Raising blood cancer's profile will reduce the harm that this lack of awareness has.
Our #SayBloodCancer campaign
We built on this momentum during Blood Cancer Awareness Month, when Stephen Fry made a video for us, alongside people from our community explaining from their own perspective why it’s important to #SayBloodCancer.
We’ve also adapted this content for healthcare professionals, and have been planning our first marketing campaign to this audience to encourage them to say “blood cancer” at the point of diagnosis.
Walk of Light
Awareness of our organisation has increased year on year and we saw a significant uplift in awareness during the peak advertising month for our Walk of Light in February, with awareness levels hitting 50.9% among people affected by blood cancer – up from 38% at the end of 2023, and our highest since we began measuring in March 2020.
Next steps
We’re now working on a project with an insight partner to review whether there are more meaningful ways we can gather and learn from the data on public understanding of blood cancer and of the support Blood Cancer UK can offer. Our ambition is to achieve 65% awareness among people affected by blood cancer by the end of our five-year strategy period, and we’re doing a lot of work to better understand our audiences to help us get there.
Our campaigns
We work with healthcare professionals, parliament and our blood cancer community to help raise awareness of blood cancer. Our campaigns aim to bring us closer to the day where no one dies of blood cancer or its treatment.
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