'I lost 15 members of my family to cancer'

"It all started for me in 1986 when I lost my granddad. I was 11 years old, and that was the first loss of my life."

Since then Jo Day, now 50, from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, has lost another 14 close family members to cancer and has had her own brush with the disease.

She is lending her support to a new online tool, launched by Stand Up To Cancer, which allows people to check if they are eligible to be screened for the disease.

"I tell everyone not to ignore their screening invitation, because it's better to be safe than sorry," she told BBC Hereford & Worcester.

All but two of her grandfather's eight siblings died of cancer, followed by her aunt and uncle, and then her cousin, at the age of 57.

"Her brother stood and said a eulogy at her funeral," she said. "But we knew that he only had a few months himself, and he died aged 61 - again of cancer.

"I've experienced nothing but loss in my life."

Cancer Research UK, which is working with Stand Up to Cancer, said there were nearly 400,000 cancer diagnoses and around 168,000 cancer-related deaths in the UK each year.

Screening for bowel, breast and cervical cancer is available for certain groups of people, depending on their age and sex, but the charity said not everyone takes up the offer.

"Screening can save lives, but many people are missing out," said Fiona Osgun, head of health information at CRUK.

"By taking just a few minutes to check [your eligibility], you could take an important step towards protecting your health."

• Bowel cancer - men and women aged 50-74
• Cervical cancer - women and some trans men and non-binary people aged 25-64
• Breast cancer - women and some trans and non-binary people aged 50-70

Screening helped save the life of Day's mother, after a routine mammogram detected two different types of breast cancer, six months after her father was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Day herself was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2024, shortly after her 49th birthday, a year before she became eligibile for bowel screenings, but was later given the all-clear.

"I was very fortunate in that I'd had the symptoms," she said. "Not everybody gets the symptoms.

"I would have had that screening come up one year later, but it could have been a different story by then."

She is encouraging people to check their eligibility, saying it could save their life.

"I've had friends say to me: 'I don't really want to do it.' And now because of me, they are doing it.

"The screening is out there for people who may be at risk.

"It's just crucial."

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