A Hull hospital will be seen in a different light next week.
From Monday, January 20, as soon as skies darken, Hull Women and Children’s Hospital will be lit up teal. The colour is significant because it is the colour of cervical cancer awareness.
The hospital hopes it will raise awareness and serve as a shining reminder to people to take up their invitations for cervical screening. Sarah Bolton, who is a nurse colposcopist at the Anlaby Road hospital, said: “We did this last year and I think it’s another way of raising awareness.
“When the building was lit up all around with teal lights last year, people were asking questions about it.” She is part of a team of trained NHS professionals from Hull and East Yorkshire on a crusade to raise awareness on the importance of cervical screening, with their charitable organisation called #smearnotfear.
In a recent post, the group revealed national findings on cervical screening that included the fact that three million women have not had screening – a smear test – for 3.5 years and that one in three women aged 25 to 29 skip their invites. In that same age group, 61 per cent were unaware they were in the highest risk group for cervical cancer.
Sarah said: “We have a Facebook and an Instagram page where we’ll be doing something different every day to highlight the campaign. We have about 3,000 followers and it’s good to do some fun things that draw attention to this and hopefully people will share it on.”
January as a whole is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, with Humber and North Yorkshire Cancer Alliance running a campaign to encourage women and people with a cervix to take up their screening invitations. Cancer Alliance colleagues and partners spend the month spreading awareness about cervical cancer symptoms and preventative measures.
One of the measures adopted for 2025 is free training for the region’s hair and beauty salon staff to encourage their customers to attend their screening appointments, and educate them about the symptoms of the disease, in low screening take-up areas in Humber and North Yorkshire. Emma Jones, 39, an A&E housekeeper at Hull Royal Infirmary, recently shared her own experiences to help raise awareness of the importance of screening.
She received an HPV-positive result after her cervical screening in 2021, and was then diagnosed with stage two cervical cancer. Emma had lost her mother to cancer, but following chemotherapy, radiotherapy and brachytherapy, she was declared cancer-free in 2022.
She said: “I know how busy life can be, but please, don’t miss your cervical screening appointments.”
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