Invest to guarantee women’s access to breast screening – now and for the future

Screening saves lives from breast cancer. But since the pandemic started, it is estimated over 1 million women have missed out on screening in England, and thousands may be living with undiagnosed breast cancer as a result. The Government must urgently invest in breast screening to prevent deaths.

Despite being one of the NHS’s biggest success stories, breast screening is at breaking point. Without investment, it may no longer be the powerful, cost-effective tool for early diagnosis it’s been for the past 35 years.

We need breast screening that is accessible to all eligible women and has enough staff and resources to offer the care women deserve, now and in decades to come.

More Government funding is needed to remove barriers to screening, support units, and modernise the programme.

The NHS Breast Screening Programme (NHS BSP) offers all women in England between the ages of 50 and their 71st birthday the opportunity to be screened every three years for breast cancer, in order to help detect abnormalities and intervene early to reduce the number of lives lost to invasive breast cancer. Breast screening prevents approximately 1,300 women dying of breast cancer every year.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic a number of people were not invited to or did not attend their breast screening appointments. As such there was a reduction in the total number of people attending their screening appointments, this has now improved with 2.06 million women screened in 2021-22 compared to 1.12 million in 2020-21.

The NHS breast screening programme experiences issues with low uptake. With research showing that breast screening uptake is better in more affluent areas, even though breast cancer affects all socio-economic groups. Evidence shows that women are more likely to attend for breast screening if they have access to a car; this can be an issue in rural areas.

In line with the evidence the government continues to support investment in mobile breast screening units, which are usually in convenient community locations, such as supermarket carparks, leisure centres and other community facilities. These are the best way to increase capacity in breast screening while also improving access and addressing health inequalities.

As a part of the Women’s Health Strategy published in July 2022, £10 million funding was awarded to the NHS breast screening programme. This funding will provide 29 new mobile and static breast screening units, 58 remote assess upgrades and nearly 70 lifesaving service upgrades, targeted at areas of low uptake, to improve capacity and tackle barriers to access. This funding is now in place for NHS trusts to spend in the 2022/23 financial year.