Scottish breast screening programme statistics
Annual update to 31 March 2019

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland provides an update of breast screening statistics to 31 March 2019. It includes NHS Breast Screening Programme performance standards, attendance figures, cancer detection rates, biopsy results and screening outcomes. Previously published data have not been revised.

Main points

NHS Breast Screening key points for the three-year period 2016/17 - 2018/19;

• 546,379 women aged 50 - 70 attended a routine breast screen appointment which equates to around 7 in 10 women (72.2%) taking up the invitation for screening.
• Women from more deprived areas are less likely to attend for breast screening, with under 6 in 10 women (59.5%) from the most deprived areas going for screening compared with almost 8 in 10 (79.7%) women living in the least deprived areas, a difference of over twenty percentage points. This pattern is reflected in other screening programmes.

•  The uptake rate has increased from 71.2% in 2015/16 – 2017/18 to 72.2% in 2016/17 – 2018/19, a level not seen since 2012/13 - 2014/15, 72.5%. The uptake rate has been falling consistently since 2009/10 - 2011/12 when it was 74.9%.
• Two NHS Boards did not meet the minimum acceptable uptake standard of 70%; NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (66.7%) and NHS Lanarkshire (69.7%). However, all mainland NHS Boards have improved uptake when compared against the previous three-year period.
• The invasive cancer detection rate for women aged 53 - 70 years who have previously been screened within five years of their last attendance was 7.0 per 1,000 women screened. This is a slight increase from the previous three-year period 2015/16 – 2017/18 (6.8 per 1,000 women screened).

Background

The Scottish Breast Screening Programme (SBSP) is part of a UK-wide programme of free mammographic screening for breast cancer, which was set up in 1988 with the aim of reducing deaths from breast cancer. There has been full national coverage of the SBSP from 1991 and since then more than 4.1 million screening episodes and in excess of 32,500 breast cancers diagnosed.

Within Scotland, data are collected by each of the six screening centres (which are supported by 19 mobile units) and retained on the SBSP Information System. Currently, all women aged between 50 and 70 are invited for a routine breast screening examination every 3 years.

The definitions of the breast screening acceptable and achievable performance measures can be found within Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s breast screening standards (external website).

More information on the SBSP dataset can be found on our data sources (external website) page.

Further information

Data from this publication are available from the publication page (external website) on our website (external website). For more information on breast screening see the breast screening section of our website (external website). For related topics, please see the cancer pages (external website) on the PHS website.

The next release of this publication is scheduled for 20 April 2021. However, given the current pause on breast screening due to the coronavirus outbreak (www.nhsinform.scot/screeningupdate) (external website), this proposed date may be affected.

NHS Performs

A selection of information from this publication is included in NHS Performs. NHS Performs is a website that brings together a range of information on how hospitals and NHS Boards within NHSScotland are performing.