Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the (a) acceptable and (b) achievable levels of S07b incident screenings for mammograms.

As part of the NHS Breast Screening Programme, S07b is the ‘screening standard’ whereby ‘incident screens’, that is any subsequent breast screen after first screen, are referred for further assessment.

NHS England has advised that there is expected to be an initial light touch review of the breast screening standards by the end of March 2025, with a full review of all standards in screening year 2025/6. During the full review in 2025/26, the programme performance in ‘percentage referrals to assessment’ will be reviewed to determine whether the acceptable and achievable limits should be changed.

However, increasing the thresholds for this standard, will mean that the number of women referred for follow up tests, namely biopsy, mammograms, and ultrasound, will increase, many of whom will have no cancer. Screening programmes must continue to maximise benefit while minimising harm.