'Supermarket car park health scan saved my life'
BBCA man who had lung cancer after smoking 40 cigarettes a day over 40 years has said he owes his life to a health screening in a supermarket car park.
Les McCaffrey said he had not smoked in 20 years nor had any symptoms when he was invited for a free check-up as part of the Tees Valley lung cancer screening programme in July 2024.
The 75-year-old said he was ''half expecting" the stage three lung cancer diagnosis weeks later, but after undergoing life-saving treatment he has been told he is now in remission.
Since its launch in 2022, the NHS programme in Teesside has detected more than 360 lung cancers, with 77% being diagnosed at stage one and two.
The Tees Valley lung cancer screening programme invites past and current smokers - aged 55 to 74 - to mobile units in supermarket car parks.
"I half expected it... I had no symptoms whatsoever but if you smoke all your life, you know you're inclined to get it," McCaffrey said.
''It's a no brainer to go for the scan.
"If I didn't, I would be dead. I'm not a person who bothers the doctors, so I'd have never known there was any problem."
McCaffrey underwent treatment including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.
Jonathan Ferguson, clinical lead for the NHS lung cancer screening programme, said when he was appointed as a lung surgeon on Teesside ''80% of people who had lung cancer had palliative care, they couldn't have curative care".
"Now with the scanners, 80% of people have curative, so we've completely flipped cancer," he added.
Ferguson urged anyone invited to the free screening to take up the offer and added it was "quick and completely painless".
''The letter you receive could be the most important letter that lands on your doorstep.
"It could be the letter that saves your life."
