Tell Your GP Instead

Bowel Cancer UK’s ‘Tell Your GP Instead’ is an innovative behaviour change campaign, encouraging people with symptoms of bowel cancer to contact their GP and ask for an at-home test. Early diagnosis of bowel cancer is critical, when the disease is most treatable. More than 9 in 10 people survive bowel cancer when diagnosed at the earliest stage. However, delays to seeing the GP when someone has symptoms can contribute to late-stage diagnosis. Unlike traditional cancer awareness campaigns that run as a 4-6 week burst, ‘Tell Your GP Instead’ ran in two-week-on/two-week-off pulses for 10 months from May 2024 to March 2025. This allowed for better targeting, repeated opportunities to chip away at deeply entrenched barriers, and reduced burden on GP practices . The campaign ran nationally with press ads and ethnic radio partnerships, with more intense activity in 19 locations involving out-of-home, local radio and press adverts. This was supplemented by an online campaign of paid search and contextual display adverts aimed at people who try to put off going to the GP by searching online. Among the campaign’s results, we saw an increase from 24% to 33% in people with blood in poo contacting their GP.