October is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Swindon’s Great Western Hospital will be raising awareness of breast cancer care by hosting an online Q&A session on Twitter on Monday.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, with around 50,000 women and around 400 men diagnosed each year. At the Breast Care Centre at GWH approximately 370 patients a year are diagnosed with breast cancer.

GWH is inviting people to join them on Twitter for a dedicated Q&A session and ask an expert any questions they may have about breast cancer.

The session will be hosted by Nathan Coombs, a consultant breast surgeon at GWH.

Mr Coombs said: “There can be many questions people have about breast cancer, such as what the signs and symptoms are, what to do if they find a lump, what’s happens at a breast screening appointment, how can the risk of breast cancer be reduced, and so on.

“There is a wealth of information already available out there from healthcare professionals, breast cancer charities and support groups, but what we want to do was is try something different, and provide a new way to interact with people and raise awareness of breast cancer.

“People can sometimes feel uncomfortable to ask about issues such as breast cancer in males, or having a mastectomy, or feel silly asking if a mammogram hurts; but these are all valid questions and we want to give people the opportunity to easily and comfortably ask them and get an answer.”

GWH will aim to answer as many questions as possible during the Twitter Q&A and will also be signposting participants to where they can get further advice, support and information.

Mr Coombs said: “I have never done anything like this myself before so I am very interested to see the response; I really hope we get lots of people taking part on the day.”

The Twitter Q&A session will take place on Monday from 1pm-2pm. To take part follow GWH on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GWH_NHS and make sure you use the hashtag #AskGWH in your tweets.

You can also email your questions in advance to comms@gwh.nhs.uk.