Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) ensure all women who are eligible take up breast screening in East Sussex and (b) track and follow up on non-attendance appointments.

All eligible individuals, including in East and West Sussex, are given a timed appointment to attend the screening location closest to their registered general practice address, with the option to change the appointment time or location given by contacting the service. Research has shown that timed appointments are more effective in encouraging attendance. The service sends text reminders two and seven days before appointments.

Should an individual not attend their appointment, they are automatically given a new timed appointment at the same location and the same text reminder process occurs. If the individual does not attend the second timed appointment, they are offered an open invitation. This means that the individual can contact the service to book their own appointment. Since implementation of text reminders, the service has seen an improvement in appointment attendance, in line with expectations based on research.

Regular “do not attend” audits are undertaken by the service. The processes involved with these audits help identify any common rationales for non-attendance that can inform service improvement strategies.