Back in January, we launched the next stage of our No Time To Waste campaign. We’re campaigning for a national breast screening awareness campaign to encourage everyone who is invited to attend their appointment.
What’s the issue?
The breast screening programme finds most breast cancers early when survival is almost 100%. That means if more women attend screening, we can save more lives from breast cancer.
But the NHS target for how many women should be screened has just been missed for the 4th year in a row. In January, NHS England published data showing that only 65% of women in England took up their routine breast screening appointment between 2022 and 2023, well below NHSE’s own minimum target of 70%.That’s why we’re calling on the government and NHSE to run a national breast screening awareness campaign, targeted at those who need it most.
What we’ve been doing
So, what have we been doing to convince the Department of Health and NHSE that an effective awareness campaign would boost screening attendance and save more lives from breast cancer?
Firstly, we launched an online call to action calling on NHSE and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Victoria Atkins, to run a national breast screening awareness campaign that promotes the importance and availability of breast screening. Thanks to supporters like you, this already has more than 50,000 signatures and counting.
Then in February, we took the campaign to parliament where we organised a drop-in session for MPs. They could come and hear about the issues and find out how they could help, both nationally and in their constituencies. We were very encouraged by the attendance and the level of engagement from MPs, who seemed keen to do their part to make a difference.
The issue has also been raised by parliamentary committees, with Caroline Nokes MP championing the case for breast screening in the Women and Equalities Committee, and Amy Callaghan MP giving Health Ministers a grilling in the Health and Social Care Committee.
And just a couple of weeks ago, along with representatives from Bowel Cancer UK, Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, Prostate Cancer, and Roy Castle, we met with Lib Dem Health Spokesperson, Daisy Cooper, to discuss how we can work together to improve the screening programmes.
What’s next?
While we’ve had a great few months of campaigning, we’re not planning on taking our foot off the pedal anytime soon. Our current focus is supporting a group of backbench MPs in holding a backbench business debate, where they’ll look to make the case forward for a national breast screening awareness campaign. The debate will also be an opportunity for MPs to raise other issues, such as inequalities, IT, staffing and how the screening programme is organised and managed.
Achieving this debate is our number one priority at the moment but it’s just part of our wider #NoTimeToWaste campaign, and we’re fully committed to achieving the objective of a breast cancer screening programme fit for purpose.