Step 2: Use good practice strategies to increase participation in cancer screening

Use this checklist to asses which of the following good practice strategies your practice is using (or could use) to support cancer screening.

It’s important that clinical and non-clinical members of your cancer screening quality improvement team work together to complete the checklist:

Download the checklist

Does your practice do the following?	Yes	No	Unsure	Next steps (Who, what, when)
Provide easy-to-read, plain English information (see ‘Health literacy’ for more information) about bowel, breast and cervical cancer screening
Display cancer screening promotional materials that reflect your patients (e.g. people from diverse backgrounds, people living with disability)
Integrate screening into health assessments (see Module 3 for more information)
Ensure female health practitioners are available¹
Ensure assumptions aren’t stopping cancer screening discussions? It’s important that clinicians avoid assumptions about any patient’s: • sexual history or orientation • screening history • reasons for not screening
Use teach-back methods to confirm understanding¹³ (see ‘Health literacy’ for more information)
Engage with non-clinical community and family networks (that represent your practice population) to promote and encourage screening¹
Systematically provide opportunities for patients to discuss screening, including their concerns and questions¹⁵ Note: Module 3 includes helpful tools for instigating discussions about cancer screening: Family history checklists Health assessment templates that integrate cancer screening
Ensure familiarity with the Toolkit for engaging under-screened and never-screened women in the National Cervical Screening Program. This toolkit has been developed to assist healthcare providers to engage under-screened and never-screened people in cervical screening. It provides clear strategies for different population groups. Many of the strategies outlined in the toolkit may also support engagement of people in bowel and breast cancer screening.