Breast Cancer Screening

Debate between Baroness Morris of Yardley and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord makes a good point. We are encouraging people to use the helpline. Indeed, the number will be written in the letter that is sent to women, whether they are offered a screening because they are aged 72 or under or want to refer themselves for a screening. At the same time, many women will be anxious and will want to see their GP, or are seeing them anyway. We recognise that. We have liaised with the Royal College to make sure that GPs are properly briefed on a potential increase in the number of women referring themselves so that they are able to cope with that and provide the necessary signalling.

It is also important to highlight that we are working very closely with the key cancer charities, such as Macmillan, Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now, and others to make sure that there is a proper, broad approach so that women, whatever their anxieties—mental health issues may have been triggered as well as physical ones—get the support that they need and deserve.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I obviously share in the concern about what has happened. I want to emphasise a point that has already been made and make sure that it will be part of the review. It is unimaginable that some women realise that they have not got the recall for their regular breast screening appointment. As a woman, you are sort of aware when it is about to come around; if the letter had not come, some people—though not everybody—would have either contacted the helpline or gone to their GP. I am worried that the response was, “Well, the computer says you’re not ready for a screening yet”, so the person was not listened to. I am seeking some assurance that the inquiry will come back with an answer on what happened when women said, “I think my breast screening appointment is late”.

Secondly, I am not sure about the scope of the inquiry, which I of course welcome. Will it look at all the circumstances surrounding this incident or will it go further, for example by looking at other causes of the drop in the percentage of people taking up such opportunities, as well as the regional disparities, which have already been mentioned?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

As always, the noble Baroness makes a very incisive point. The inquiry must look at whether there were signals and whether they were missed. That may be at the macro level or the micro level, with individual women saying to their GP, “Hang on, this is odd, I haven’t got this”. The problem has arisen because of the interaction between the screening process, which is due to run until a woman’s 71st birthday, and the extension, which was meant to run from a woman’s 71st birthday to the end of her 73rd year but was taking women into this clinical trial prematurely and randomising them. Hence, women in their 70th year did not get anything. It was the interaction of the two. It is technically quite devilish. A 70 year-old woman might or might not have known that she was due to have another one. This is one of things we have to get to the bottom of because, as the noble Baroness said, although this is about technology and computers, ultimately humans are at the centre of this problem.

The inquiry is primarily focused on the incident itself, but I imagine that if, during the course of its work, it finds out or establishes that other issues need to be pursued, such as increasing screening rates variation and so on, it will have the freedom to make those recommendations.