What happens during the check?
There are two main stages to a targeted lung health check.
The first is an initial telephone assessment with a health professional and the second, if necessary, is a simple scan of the lungs.
What happens during an initial lung health check telephone assessment?
If eligible, you will receive a letter inviting you to a telephone lung health check, where you’ll be asked some questions about your general health and family and medical history. If you are a current smoker, you will also have a discussion around smoking cessation with a professional.
There are two possible results from your lung health check:
- You are invited to a face-to-face appointment with a nurse at the most convenient location for yourself. This appointment will be made during the assessment.
- You are discharged from the service. The professional may find nothing further to investigate and you will be discharged from the programme. We will write to your GP to tell them this.
What happens at the face-to-face appointment?
This will take place at a mobile unit parked up within a convenient community location such as a supermarket or football club car park.
The nurse may take your height and weight, check your blood pressure and test your breathing. If you are a current smoker, you will also have a discussion around smoking cessation.
You may also have a low-dose CT scan.
The CT scan
A low-dose CT scanner will take a detailed picture of your lungs, to check for early signs of lung cancer and other lung conditions.
In the unlikely case that we find something requiring immediate action, you will be contacted via telephone within a week of your scan.
If we need to take a second look, you will receive an outcome letter within four weeks explaining what your initial CT scan showed and inviting you to a further scan 3 or 12 months later.
If you nothing significant is found, you will be told via letter within four weeks of your scan. You will be asked to return for a further scan 24 months later to confirm all is well. You will receive a separate invitation to this closer to the date of the scan.
We will write to your GP so they know about the outcome.
Please wait four weeks to hear from our team. If you haven’t heard after this time, please contact our bookings team on 0117 233 8127 or email: swag.lunghealthcheck@nhs.net
