§ 37. Dr. TwinnTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress is being made in implementing a national breast screening service; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyThe table lists those breast screening centres in England which had become operational by the end of 1989.
Under the programme, all women aged between 50 and 64 years will be invited to be screened by mammography every three years; older women will be screened on request. The purpose of screening is to detect changes in breast tissue which might be cancerous at an early stage when treatment can be simple and most likely to be effective.
Plans for extending the breast screening programme to cover all district health authorities in England are well advanced; a full nationwide service comprising about 80 centres (including mobile units) is expected to become operational during 1990.
663WThe breast screening programmes in the other parts of the United Kingdom are the responsibilities of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Screening centres operational as at December 1989 Region Centres Northern Gateshead Newcastle Yorkshire Huddersfield Hull York Trent Nottingham Leicester Lincoln South Yorkshire East Anglian King's Lynn Suffolk Peterborough Norwich North West Thames Barnet Charing Cross North East Thames Epping Bloomsbury East London Chelmsford and Colchester Whipps Cross South East Thames Camberwell Canterbury East Sussex South West Thames Guildford Worthing Wessex Southampton Isle of Wight Portsmouth Oxford Aylesbury Northampton Wycombe Milton Keynes Reading South Western Cornwall Avon West Devon West Midlands Stoke on Trent Coventry Dudley Walsall Birmingham Mersey Liverpool North Western Manchester Bolton Wigan