Ireland’s work with communities to improve equity in cancer screening
Improving access to breast, cervical and bowel screening
HSE National Screening Service
Ireland’s HSE National Screening Service is partnering with communities to improve access to breast, cervical and bowel screening. Through initiatives such as the Community Champions Programme, developing tools to support community action and targeted projects with migrant groups, Ireland is building trusted relationships that support people to take part in screening.
Partnering with communities to reduce barriers
We know that people from diverse communities may face additional barriers to accessing screening. These can include language, cultural differences, or being unfamiliar with the Irish health system. Collaboration and partnership are key to overcoming these barriers.
That’s why we work directly with communities – training and supporting local community health workers to raise awareness about screening, share accurate information, and build trust.
Community Champions Programme
At the centre of this work is our Community Champions Programme. This initiative trains community health workers to act as trusted screening advocates in their own communities.
We educate and train our community champions on:
- the purpose and benefits of screening
- how our screening programmes work
- how to support people to make informed choices to take part in screening.
They share this knowledge with people in their communities through workshops, conversations, events and one-to-one support.
An evaluation of the programme shows that community-led approaches are a powerful way to increase understanding and encourage participation in screening, particularly among groups who may be less likely to take part.
Tools to support community action
We developed tools to support our community champions in their work.
Our interventions toolkit provides practical guidance, tools and resources to help community health workers plan and deliver initiatives that support screening participation. The toolkit draws on evidence and real-world experience, making it easier for them to design interventions that work in their local context.
We developed an Equity Toolkit to help communities promote equity in cancer risk reduction, screening and early diagnosis. This resource empowers communities to take action across the cancer pathway, from prevention through to early detection.
We produced animated videos to explain our breast, cervical and bowel cancer screening programmes. The videos have been translated into different languages.
Case study: supporting Ukrainian women to access breast screening
A recent project with Ukrainian women living in Ireland shows the impact of this community-led approach. Following the delivery of training, some of our community champions contacted us to ask if we could help them to support Ukrainian women to attend free breast screening with BreastCheck.
We put together a project team of BreastCheck staff, health promotion officers and community health workers. We listened to the feedback from our community champions from the work they were doing in their communities with Ukrainian women. This helped us to identify the barriers to screening for these women.
Then, we all worked together to develop a plan and put supports in place to address these barriers.
This included:
- helping women to register to get an appointment for screening
- translating important information about breast screening into Ukrainian
- organising transport to attend screening
- providing interpreters at screening.
Community action helps improves equity
Community partnerships are central to our work to improve equity in cancer screening. By educating and training trusted community health workers and providing them with practical tools to support their work, we are removing barriers and helping more people to benefit from screening.
Ireland’s experience shows that building relationships and working in partnership with communities is key to delivering more inclusive cancer screening services.
Ireland has 5 priority areas for improving equity in screening. Priority Area 4 is about accessibility and inclusivity and we are applying learning from this and our Community Champions Programme to Task 6.4 (strategies for increased cancer screening participation among immigrants) of the EUCanScreen project.
Find out more about our work to improve equity in screening: hse.ie/equityinscreening
- Follow the HSE National Screening Service on X @NSShse, on LinkedIn and follow the hashtag #ChooseScreening
- The National Screening Service is part of Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE). Keep up to date with our latest news at screeningservice.ie
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s EU4HEALTH Programme under the Grant Agreement no 101162959