Historically and currently, prevalent women are not attending for Breast screening appointments and engaging with the service.
In 2016, the proportion of eligible women taking up routine breast screening invitations fell to its lowest rate in a 10 year period in the UK. With the largest decline in the prevalent cohort (First timers). Uptake in the Incident cohort (Routine) declined slightly. Recent studies have shown that the second highest demographic are the over 55’s. (2018, The Guardian) Facebook remains the most popular social networking site in the UK, with Twitter being lower in popularity. (2015,The Telegraph)
Facebook is still the dominant social media provider(2017, Ofcom) The Health Improvement team chose the Facebook platform for engagement as Facebook networks People while Twitter networks ideas and topics.
The main objective was a great digital campaign to get people to connect with the page, comment and share it with their friends. What we know from research is getting people to “Like” you is just the beginning. A really effective Facebook presence is an on-going conversation with lots of interaction, this has been achieved also with real video from local screening locations. (Redmoor, 2018) Selected GP practices were targeted with a digital approach. All practices saw an increase in overall uptake and an increase in prevalent attendance, therefore reversing the national 10yr decline. With the use of Facebook, we are able to engage with “Hard to reach” and “perpetual non-attendees” who would not normally contact the service. This is achieved by encourage cohorts to directly message the page. This interaction allows them to remain a certain level of anonymity. “I am 57yrs old and I had missed two screening appointments, therefore never attending before. I saw your post over the little bit of stone page and decided to get in touch over Facebook. I then went on to have my mammogram.”
We have established a positive conversation with targeted community cohorts, therefore enabling and empowering women to make informed choices. These posts are breaking down a number of barriers, including organizational and misrepresentation barriers and are resulting in behavioral changes towards Breast screening. We have identified that there is a misconception in the over 70’s being entitled for Breast screening. This is highlighted in each engagement post.With the use of Facebook, we are able to engage with “Hard to reach” and “perpetual non-attendees” who would not normally contact the service. This is achieved by encourage cohorts to directly message the page. This interaction allows them to remain a certain level of anonymity. “I am 57yrs old and I had missed two screening appointments, therefore never attending before. I saw your post over the little bit of stone page and decided to get in touch over Facebook. I then went on to have my mammogram.” We have established a positive conversation with targeted community cohorts, therefore enabling and empowering women to make informed choices. These posts are breaking down a number of barriers, including organizational and misrepresentation barriers and are resulting in behavioral changes towards Breast screening. The digital engagement approach resulted in reversing the 10yr decline for breast screening uptakes. However, it has created an organisational issue for the staff involved. Ladies message the Facebook page out of office working hours and in particular at the weekends. This can then lead to criticism, if they do not get a prompt reply. Working in collaboration with Redmoor Health, an artificial intelligence “Alexa” application will be added to the messenger. This will then give ladies an automatic response, which will lead to them having an increased confidence in the service. This application will be able to answer screening specific questions i.e. age eligibility, screening locations and targeted GP practices.