Evaluating your project/activity

In this section you can find tips and information on evaluating the impact of projects and useful links. 

Key metrics for evaluation

• Awareness – some measure of the target group’s awareness of the campaign/ intervention / activity, preferably complemented with a measure of cancer awareness (pre and post), e.g. the CAM.
• Detailed description of the intervention / activity – to include what the exact purpose and aims of the activity are and precisely how these will be addressed through the intervention. Do not forget to include in this a list of the GP practices covered by the intervention.
• Behaviour change – metric(s) that describe the behaviour change you are tackling, for example, two week wait referrals. Depending on the tumour type, other types of data that may be collected locally are resection rates, referrals for chest x-ray, stage (via MDT, audit or secondary care partners) and, in those areas where primary care measurements are being recorded, presentations to primary care.

Top tips for evaluating your project

• Start planning your evaluation alongside planning your project
• Agree and record the aims and objectives of your project and make sure they’re SMART (link back to SMART info)
• Select a range of indicators or measures that will allow you to assess whether the project has met its aims and objectives, e.g. if you aim to raise awareness, then you need a way of assessing whether awareness has improved as a result of your project
• Consider all the possible implications of the project, and collect data to assess additional/unintended impact where possible, e.g. the impact of your project/activity on uptake of cancer screening or anxiety levels about cancer
• Always get a baseline that is as close to the launch of your activities as possible
• If possible, have a comparison or control group that is not exposed to the project or activity, e.g. GP Practices that fall outside of the target area of the project or activity.
• Ensure that any survey you carry out uses a sample that is as representative of the target population as possible, and think about ways to maximise recruitment and minimise drop-out
• Keep track and closely monitor other projects or activities going on in and around your area that could have an impact on the outcomes you’re interested in e.g. awareness of cancer symptoms, increase in 2WW referrals
• Keep detailed records that allow you to fully describe what the project involved, the cost of the different elements, and the evaluation undertaken, so that it could be repeated in the future
  

For information about the Cancer Awareness Measures, and to download the toolkits, click here. For an example of a CAM tender and CAM report, visit the information section within the 'getting results' pages.

If you use the CAM, do remember to upload the results to the UK data archive - download guidance on this.