Further information about the study

All relevant CANDID Study documentation has been added at the bottom of this page. If you have any further queries, please feel free to get in touch with us via the contact us page.

Below are links to related research articles:

GPs should consider a more overt discussion with patients when referring them for further investigation of symptoms which may indicate cancer, according to a paper published in the British Journal of General Practice.

O'Dowd et al found that patients that die early from lung cancer are interacting with primary care pre-diagnosis, suggesting potentially missed opportunities to identify them earlier

CANDID Qualitative Evaluation (download on the right): McLachlan et al findings suggest that prompting patients for further detail on symptoms within consultations may provide critical contextual information to aid referral decisions. The model of symptom interpretation and help-seeking developed from this study could be used by primary care practitioners to facilitate this process. The results also have implications for public health campaigns for lung and colorectal cancers.

Below are links to related news articles:

New cancer strategy 'could save thousands of lives'

Bowel cancers 'spotted too late'

NHS plan to achieve earlier cancer diagnosis and save lives

Many cancer patients 'not referred to specialist by GP '

GPC hits out at 'simplistic' ranking of GP cancer referrals

GPs to be named and shamed over cancer diagnosis

Lung cancer pathway focuses on improving early diagnosis

Cancer Research UK provide the following advice to Health Professionals on their 'Be Clear on Cancer' website :

"Make it part of your day-to-day conversations. Whether you are working in a GP practice or pharmacy, training frontline workers, delivering health advice/information, working with hard to reach groups in the community, or chatting to colleagues, make every contact count. Talking may prompt someone to make an appointment, or to open up about any concerns or a symptom they didn’t think was serious. We need to encourage people to talk openly about cancer. This campaign gives us all the chance to do that."