Leadership in breast screening and the importance of appropriate communication during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: In England, the NHS National Breast Screening Programme (NHSBSP) offers routine breast screening to all women, some trans men and non-bionary people, between the ages of 50 years and up to their 71 st birthday, every 3 years. The unfolding Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 was understandably a time of great anxiety and concern. Culturally we were seeing strong behavioural shifts such as social distancing and a general change in all our daily life patterns.

The National Patient Notification Exercise: How well did local breast screening services cope with the additional workload?

Objective: To describe how three English breast screening services responded to the 2018 Patient Notification Exercise, a national intervention whereby women who had potentially missed their final screening invitation were offered new appointments. To compare key performance indicators for women thus invited with key performance indicators for women invited routinely in the same period.

Methods: Uptake, assessment and cancer detection for 9439 women aged over 70 in the Patient Notification Exercise were compared with key performance indicators for 14,824 women, of similar age, who were routinely invited in the same period, using chi squared () tests.