§ Mrs. FyfeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how far the recently agreed programme of breast screening for women aged over 50 years has been implemented; and whether he has any plans to widen the service.
§ Mr. MellorThe table lists those breast screening centres in England which are now operational.
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 be operational in 1990.
The 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 of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
SCREENING CENTRES OPERATIONAL AS AT JUNE 1989
Region and centres
- Northern
- Gateshead
- Newcastle
428 - Yorkshire
- Huddersfield
- Trent
- Nottingham
- Leicester
- Lincoln
- East Anglian
- King's Lynn
- Suffolk
- Peterborough
- North West Thames
- Barnet
- North East Thames
- Epping
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital
- South East Thames
- Camberwell
- South West Thames
- Guildford
- Wessex
- Southampton
- Isle of Wight
- Portsmouth
- Oxford
- Aylesbury
- Northampton
- Wycombe
- South Western
- Cornwall
- Avon
- West Midlands
- Stoke on Trent
- Coventry
- Dudley
- Walsall
- Mersey
- Liverpool
- North Western
- Manchester
- Bolton
- Wigan