Breast Cancer Screening: Bassetlaw

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) for bringing forward this debate on a really important topic that is close to my heart and, I know, the hearts of so many other hon. Members. It is really important to ensure that as many women as possible take up the offer of screening. They should not feel embarrassed to seek help if they feel something untoward when checking their breasts.

My hon. Friend has spoken really eloquently, and has been supported by other colleagues. As she has done on other occasions, she has highlighted her family’s experience of losing a loved one due to the fear of seeking medical advice, and she is right to raise the issue of the downturn in women choosing to be screened in her constituency and, sadly, across the country.

Survival rates for breast cancer can be good. If breast cancer is found early, at stage one, the five-year survival rate can be as high as 98.2%, but the five-year survival rate plummets to 26.6% when breast cancer is not found until stage four. The earlier breast cancer is caught, the earlier it can be treated, and the more likely it is that the patient will recover.

Everyone is encouraged to check their breasts for lumps. There have been some excellent public health campaigns over the years from various charities explaining what to look for, be it a lump, a discharge or a dimpling of the skin on the breast. If a change is found, it is essential that no time is wasted before contacting a GP. That is why screening is an essential tool in our arsenal when trying to prevent this disease.

A mammogram can identify breast cancer before it is large enough to be felt. The NHS national breast cancer screening programme invites all women aged 50 to 71 to attend a screening appointment once every three years. Mammograms can be uncomfortable, as those of us who have had them know, and many women have anxiety about having to get undressed in front of strangers, but that short discomfort could save a life. It is important that we encourage all women not to put off their scans.

The NHS breast screening programme was badly affected by the pandemic, as we have heard this evening. Screening for breast cancer was paused, and when it restarted, the number of women taking up the offer did not recover to pre-pandemic levels. Even after the backlog of missed appointments had been cleared, the take-up of invitations was low, and data indicates that lots of women are still not coming forward to start their screening journey. The NHS is doing more to help to drive up engagement, and we can all do more to help, as my hon. Friend is doing.

The most recent NHS data shows that breast cancer screening uptake in the area including my hon. Friend’s constituency is reported at 74.1%, with an achievable standard of 80%. That is higher than the national average of 70%, but it is short of that achievable high standard. Also, the percentage of women screened within 36 months of their previous screen is reported at 97.5%, versus the acceptable standard of 90% and the achievable standard of 99%.

While more can clearly be done to increase uptake, I hope that those figures for the entire patch that includes my hon. Friend’s constituency provide some reassurance that women are coming forward to be screened. However, I absolutely take the point made by her and her colleagues that the data needs to be understood at a more granular, local level—particularly data on the women coming forward in areas of high deprivation. I will ensure that my hon. Friend has access to that information following this debate.

I am pleased that the Doncaster and Bassetlaw teaching hospitals breast screening service has made significant improvements over the past year to improve attendance at appointments. I really commend my hon. Friend’s “Love your boobs” campaign, and the work that she has highlighted with local women like as Liz, Maria, Barbara, Claire and Lynn, and with men such as Danny, which makes the point that is important that men also check. The service has recently expanded availability by offering more appointments outside traditional hours. It has extended its clinic hours, and has regular Saturday appointments. The invitation method has also been changed from open appointments to timed and dated appointments, which has been shown to help increase engagement, and the service has met with the Cancer Alliance and commissioners to review ways of increasing uptake. I understand that Doncaster and Bassetlaw teaching hospitals’ breast screening service is planning to invite my hon. Friend to visit a clinic in her constituency. I hope that visit will furnish her with further information about local efforts to increase uptake, and I know she will make sure that visit happens.

In February this year, the NHS launched a national breast screening awareness campaign to encourage more women to take up the offer of screening, and debates such as the one we are having tonight help raise awareness of its importance. We are not complacent: as well as increasing the uptake of routine screening, we need to make sure that the women who are most at risk are screened more frequently. The breast screening after radiotherapy dataset, or BARD, programme is working to identify and invite women who received radiotherapy involving breast tissue when aged between 10 and 35. As we have heard this evening, genetic tracing programmes are also looking at identifying carriers of genes, including BRCA, that predispose individuals to a higher risk of breast cancer. Those women are entitled to more frequent screening, and we need to ensure that they are identified and informed.

The UK national screening committee is considering other changes to the breast screening programme. It is looking at whether women with denser breasts need to be screened differently, and an ongoing trial called BRAID—breast radiography to aid identification of cancers in dense breasts—is looking at breast density. The UK NSC is discussing the first findings of that trial, which I am sure hon. Members will maintain a close interest in. It will continue to review BRAID and other findings as they become available to ensure that early decisions can be made to keep the screening programme updated and dynamic.

We are also investigating the age thresholds for screening. Currently, only higher-risk women are invited for screening below the age of 50. The programme stops at the 71st birthday, although women aged over 70 can choose to opt back into regular screens. A trial called AgeX is reviewing whether an additional screen three years before and three years after the existing age thresholds would increase the effectiveness of this programme and ultimately save more lives, and the EDITH research study is looking at whether artificial intelligence can be used to support the reading of mammograms. If it can, that could relieve pressure on the workforce and allow more screens to take place, as there would be increased capacity to translate the results. The Government have already invested £11 million in that trial, and we keenly await the results.

More widely, the Government are committed to tackling breast cancer and ensuring that women get diagnosed and treated faster and more efficiently. That is why we will publish a national cancer plan later this year. That plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention, screening, research and innovation. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to improve the experience of, and outcomes for, people with cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years.

I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and other hon. Members for being in the Chamber this evening, giving this House an important opportunity to shine a light on the lifesaving importance of breast screening. My hon. Friend is doing a great service in publicising her work with the NHS, and I wish her good luck with Race for Life. We all have the same goal, and together, we can improve outcomes and increase the number of women surviving breast cancer.

Question put and agreed to.