Professional: How to get involved
Here are some suggestions on how YOU can help:
Free oral examinations
Household budgets are tight for many people at the moment. Offering patients or local groups an afternoon of free mouth cancer examinations is a great way to support your local community. It’s a good way to promote awareness of the illness, and at the same time help develop the goodwill of your practice.
Create a display
One of the best ways to provide information to the public during the month is to set up a display. Use the campaign’s free posters, alongside other educational resources available from the Foundation. Balloons are great at drawing attention to any display; try combining these with patient information leaflets, a Mouth Cancer Banner and a Mouth Cancer Self-Examination Checklist.
The cigarette jar
You can do a lot with an empty jar... Encourage staff and patients to put their cigarettes in the jar in return for an opportunity to win a great prize draw.
Contact the local press
Local press are often keen to cover events in the area, especially ones for a good cause. So once you’ve decided on your event, get in touch with your local newspaper. This is a cost effective way of raising awareness, and promoting your dental practice. You can download a template news release for Mouth Cancer Action Month in the Media Centre. For further advice contact the Foundation’s PR Team on 01788 539 792 or by email at pr@dentalhealth.org.
Make patients aware
Make a point of discussing the risk factors and symptoms with every patient and carrying out a full mouth examination.
Team meeting
If a patient rang your practice complaining of a non-healing mouth ulcer, would all your staff know what advice to give? Hold a staff meeting to ensure all your team are able to advise the public. And why not ask your reception staff to send out letters to patients offering a free examination, and explaining the main risk factors and symptoms. This can be very effective!
Visit our Forum
Go our our new forum and start a conversation about mouth cancer.
And finally, we are asking members of the profession to fill out this short survey about mouth cancer. The findings will be used to support the Foundation's public relations work and contribute towards Foundation policy.
The survey should take around 10 minutes to complete.