Health tech company Sanius Health, formerly Eleven Health, has launched a large Sickle Cell Disease awareness campaign across the country, said to be the largest awareness campaign in the 150-year history of the disease.
This week (from 15 September 2022), the company behind the integrated Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) patient and research platform, launched the campaign.
The company has worked with patient organisations and some of its industry partners to addresses key issues related to SCD, including “the impact of health inequality on the SCD community, the burden of illness, and the cost of living; all of which impact overall health outcomes for patients”.
HTN obtained some early releases of the campaign content which represents patients in a fresh and powerful way:
As part of this campaign, over 350 billboards were launched in the UK alone, with each billboard representing approximately 42 patients. The campaign’s core awareness message, ‘This is what sickle cell looks like’, links to the NHS’s own message: ‘Can you tell it’s sickle cell?’
“These messages are intended to help patients with access to free prescriptions on the NHS, like many other long-term conditions. Currently, patients with Sickle Cell Disease have to pay for their prescriptions, and those who successfully apply for a PIP certificate still pay up to £100 per year. SCD patients are not eligible for free prescriptions, even though the prescription exemption list covers multiple illnesses such as epilepsy – which disproportionately affects white people,” the campaign brief notes.
A spokesperson for Sanius Health said: “We have created the largest ecosystem of patients with SCD because we want to change the world for them. That means we want to ensure better access to care and new therapies, better outcomes, and to better support patients by providing a bigger, well-coordinated voice for change. Hundreds of our patient “warriors” have said to us that the issue of prescriptions and cost of living is a real issue for them. We want to change that. By partnering with patients and healthcare providers, we hope to extend the amazing work done by others to deliver for patients.”
A petition set up by Anusjka Regis-Etumnu, and backed by the Sickle Cell Society a partner of the campaign, has called for the blood disorder to be added to the prescription charge exemption list. This petition has now been signed by over 20,000 people:
“We are requesting that the inherited disease sickle cell anaemia, be placed on the prescription charge exemption list as soon as possible. This will contribute to a better quality of life for people who already suffer so greatly,” the page read.
The Sickle Cell Society is also a part of the Prescription Charge Coalition, a group of 51 organisations calling on the government to scrap prescription charges for people with long-term conditions in England. By partnering with patients, organisations and healthcare professionals, Sanius Health’s billboard campaign hopes to spread awareness on Sickle Cell Disease across the UK and beyond.
To learn more about the campaign, visit the campaign page here.
