Dame Deborah James has called on big brands to make a huge change to their loo rolls after retailer Marks and Spencer announced the launch of a new campaign.
The mum-of-two spoke about the importance of raising awareness during an interview on Tuesday's Lorraine. Dame Deborah, who is receiving palliative care after being diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016, recorded a special video clip for one of Loraine Kelly's guests Cara Hoofe, the Mirror reports.
Appearing at the ITV studio this morning, Cara shared her own bowel cancer journey and said she was "over the moon" that her employer, Marks and Spencer, decided to go with her idea of putting the signs and symptoms of the disease on their toilet roll packaging.
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Cara submitted the idea to M&S’ newly launched Straight to Stuart colleague suggestion scheme and the retailer partnered up with Bowel Cancer UK to make it a reality. From September, their entire toilet roll range will feature the charity’s logo and symptoms infographic on-pack.
Available across all M&S stores, customers will be able to scan a QR code redirecting them to Bowel Cancer UK’s website to find out more. The move is designed to help save lives by aiding early detection as bowel cancer is treatable and curable if diagnosed early.
Cara told Lorraine: "I'm over the moon, I don't really have the words to describe how I feel about M&S doing this to raise awareness about bowel cancer, especially because we've got such a huge customer base as well."
Lorraine then surprised Cara with a sweet message from Dame Deborah. In it, the 40-year-old said: "Congratulations Cara, I'm so pleased that you are talking about the hard work that you have put in and what you have achieved.
"I know we've both gone through bowel cancer, we've spoken so many times about getting signs and symptoms on loo roll but you finally did it and I am really, really proud of you for doing that. It's the start of things to come, I think we should do a big shout out to other companies now saying, 'come on where's your signs and symptoms? Forget about the puppies!'
"I'm bored of the puppies! We need like actual information sign posted on those loo rolls so I'm hoping lots of other big brands will go, 'hold on yeah this is what we need to be doing'. So I can't wait to see that happen and a massive, massive well done to you girl."
It comes after Dame Deborah was accused of making an "uncalled for" jibe at the expense of the Duchess of Sussex. The brave star had joked that she was "determined" to not pass away during the Platinum Jubilee weekend as she did not want the Duchess to "steal my thunder".
Explaining her comment, she tweeted on Sunday morning: "Megan comment is a joke, apparently you can still find a send off fun in your day! The rest is not. Is dying the last taboo of them all?
"I thought poo talk was hard, but navigating end of life care makes checking your poo easy by comparison of DNR chat and respect documents!"
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