Published on 7 February 2025
The vital lung health tests that are now in Wirral and Warrington and which have found hundreds of cancers across Cheshire and Merseyside have been given a new name.
Targeted Lung Health Checks are now being called Lung Cancer Screening, to reflect the main benefit of the test – finding cancer.
The checks are set to become part of the NHS’s national cancer screening programme – alongside breast, cervical and bowel tests – which save thousands of lives each year by finding cancer earlier, when it is more effective to treat.
Thousands of people in Cheshire and Merseyside have been invited to a screening. They have been carried out in Liverpool, Halton, St Helens and south Sefton and now in Wirral and Warrington. People in north Sefton will be given appointments from later this year and the rest of Cheshire will join the programme during 2026.
A screening is available to people aged 55 to 74 who smoke or used to smoke as part of the biggest programme to improve early lung cancer diagnosis in health service history. The screening pinpoints those most at risk and they are offered a chest CT scan to rule out health problems or prompt more investigation or treatment.
Cancer patient Paul Nelson, from Birkenhead, was diagnosed with the disease last summer after going for a screening test. His cancer was caught early so he is now receiving treatment at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.
Paul said: “If this can happen to me when I was so healthy, it can happen to anyone. I am so glad I went. This has now been caught early enough for treatment. If things had been left for a few more months it could have been very different.”
Dr Chris Warburton, Lung Cancer Screening Clinical Director of Programme for Cheshire and Merseyside, said: “The checks themselves will not change, just the name to reflect that they have been hugely successful in detecting lung cancer at an early stage, when it is easier to treat and is potentially curable.
“We want everyone who is given an appointment for Lung Cancer Screening to attend – but around half of those invited do not take it up. For the vast majority, the scan will show that everything is normal, but for those who do have something wrong, catching it early can make all the difference.
“It is usual for there to be no signs and symptoms of lung cancer until it is advanced and much harder to cure – which is why this screening is vital.”
You can read more about Lung Cancer Screening here: https://cmcanceralliance.nhs.uk/work/prevention-early-diagnosis/lung-cancer-screening