BLACKPOOL residents are invited to attend the Love Your Liver mobile unit, which will be at St Johns Square from 10am to 4pm on Thursday, September 27.
Love Your Liver is a national awareness campaign from the British Liver Trust aimed at encouraging us all to look after our livers and stay healthy. It focuses on raising awareness of liver health, the rising liver disease rate and how greater public awareness and screening is vital.
Mike Rolland, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Blackpool has some of the worst statistics in the country for liver disease.
“This event helps to highlight the issues, but liver damage is usually related to lifestyle. We all have a responsibility to look after our own liver in order to keep ourselves healthy.’’
Liver disease is the fifth ‘big killer’ in England & Wales, after heart, cancer, stroke and respiratory disease in the UK and most liver disease is preventable – over 90% are due to three main risk factors: alcohol, viral hepatitis and obesity. The Love Your Liver event will give people the chance to take a liver health screener. The screener assesses the potential for liver damage against the three main risk factors.
If the screener result shows a potential risk of liver damage then they may be offered a non-invasive liver check with a FibroScan machine. This scan can give an indication of any liver damage and, depending on the result, they may be recommended to visit their GP to discuss further liver function tests. If you would like any further information about the campaign, please contact the British Liver Trust at loveyourliver@britishlivertrust.org.uk or call them on 01425 481320.