Children get sun safety message

6:23am Wednesday 7th May 2008

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Skin cancer experts have been rubbing in a safety message this week.

Members of Bradford Skin Cancer Action group were at Odsal Stadium, the home of Bradford Bulls rugby league team, to launch their new teaching pack at the start of Sun Awareness Week.

Sun-wise youngsters from St Matthew's Catholic School in Allerton were there to give them a hand.

The Little Sunbeams pack was developed by the action group from Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

It won funding from the Karen Clifford skin cancer charity and Uvistat Pharmaceuticals Company. The education pack, which features comic characters Captain Safe Sun and evil Professor Sunburn, will be rolled out nationally to reach as many children as possible before summer gets underway.

Skin cancer has the fastest rising incidence rate of all cancers in the UK, and sunburn in childhood can later lead to the development of melanoma in adult life.

Clinical specialist nurse Catherine Wheelhouse was also at yesterday's launch giving the children the "slip, slap, slop" message.

"It's a message the children have taken to quickly - slip on a T-shirt, slap on the hat and glasses, and slop on the suncream," she said.

"We're not saying Don't enjoy the sun'. What we are saying is Whatever you do, don't go out and burn and don't get skin cancer when you're older'."

The number of incidents of teenage skin cancer in the UK is among the highest in Europe.

Last year the youngest person treated in Bradford was a 13-year-old.

Consultant dermatologist Andrew Wright said getting the awareness message out to children is vital.

"One person in the UK dies from skin cancer every four hours yet it is known in 90 per cent of cases - it could be prevented," he said.

"Anyone with a skin lesion that changes colour or size should go and get it checked out by an expert."