(2) what proportion of eligible women have been seen within the 36-month standard for breast cancer screenings in England in each year since 1997.
The proportion of eligible women seen within the 36-month standard for breast screening is not collected centrally. However, as a one-off exercise, national health service cancer screening programmes requested data from the NHS breast screening programme on the percentage of local screening units achieving the 36-month national standard between screens for quarter four 2005-06 (January to March 2006).
It found that in England, 68 per cent. of women were re-screened within the 36-month national standard and the average wait between screens was 36 months. The following table shows the average round length and the percentage of women re-screened within 36 months of their previous screening for each breast screening unit in England.
Breast screening unit Average round length (months) Percentage of screenings within 36 months of previous screening North Yorkshire 34 93 Humberside 40 29 Pennine 36 67 Leeds Wakefield 37 38 Doncaster 33 94 Rotherham 35 84 Sheffield 35 71 Barnsley 35 99 Nottingham 34 90 North Nottinghamshire 35 91 Lincolnshire 40 33 South Derbyshire 36 80 North Derbyshire 36 49 Kettering 32 99 Northampton 33 99 Leicester 35 82 Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire 39 52 Chelmsford and Colchester 38 60 South Essex 34 73 Epping 19 99 West Suffolk 33 98 Norfolk and Norwich 37 61 Great Yarmouth and Waveney 36 73 Peterborough 35 98 King's Lynn 36 92 Cambridge and Huntingdon 37 47 East Suffolk 34 95 South East London GCA 1 35 70 South East London GCA 2 35 69 North London EBA 35 66 South West London HWA 38 44 Barking Havering FBH 40 28 West of London ECX 36 46 Central and East London FLO 35 78 Whipps Cross FWC 42 7 Newcastle 38 50 Gateshead 35 71 North Tees 36 68 Bolton 38 54 Chester 32 99 Crewe 35 97 East Lancashire 35 86 Greater Manchester 42 7 Liverpool 36 66 Macclesfield 41 21 North Cumbria 35 97 North Lancashire 45 11 Warrington 35 96 Wigan 37 56 Wirral 35 96 Windsor 32 99 West Berkshire 35 66 Aylesbury 28 100 Milton Keynes 33 99 Wycombe 27 100 Oxford 37 74 North and Mid Hampshire 34 58 Isle of Wight 33 99 Southampton and Salisbury 36 64 Portsmouth 40 11 Worthing 40 56 Jarvis Centre, Guildford 33 92 Brighton 34 83 Kent Programme 41 30 Avon 44 18 Gloucestershire 35 84 Wiltshire 35 95 Dorset 35 98 Somerset 35 98 Cornwall 34 64 East Devon 45 8 South Devon 37 82 West Devon 40 26 City Hospital 35 97 Dudley and Wolverhampton 34 98 Hereford and Worcester 33 98 North Staffordshire 35 98 Shropshire 39 49 South Birmingham 34 98 South Staffordshire 38 71 Walsall and Sandwell 34 99 Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry 34 96
The NHS Cancer Plan, published in 2000, stated that we would extend invitations for breast screening to women aged 65 to 70 and introduce two-view mammography at all screening rounds. Thanks to the efforts of the staff in the screening programme, these targets have now been achieved in all local breast screening units. The expansion is already showing an effect, with nearly 12,000 cancers diagnosed by the programme in 2004-05, an increase of 40 per cent. on 2001 when the expansion began.
However, the changes together represent a 40 per cent. increase in the workload of the programme. We are aware that this has had an impact on some services maintaining the three-year interval for screening and we are taking steps to bring all screening intervals back to three years.
We take the issue of the 36-month standard between screens very seriously. That is why Professor Mike Richards, the National Cancer Director, wrote to the chief executives of all 10 strategic health authorities in England on 9 February 2007 highlighting the importance of maintaining the 36-month interval.