NHS Breast Screening Programme, England 2021-22

The NHS Breast Screening Programme was seriously impacted by disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic during 2021-22

In 2021-22, the NHS Breast Screening Programme was in the process of recovering from the disruption caused from the COVID-19 pandemic. During the previous year (2020-21), all 78 NHS Breast Screening Units made the decision to pause screening for approximately 3 months to allow staff to be redeployed to respond to COVID-19, and to protect patients and staff from the virus.  

• COVID-19 restrictions (social distancing & additional infection prevention and control measures) remained in place in many services for much of 2021-22 which continued the need for longer scheduled appointment times. 
• In most geographical areas, fewer women presented for breast screening which was as experienced during 2020-21 at the height of COVID infections. 

• Local variations in screening uptake were impacted by the geographical variation in COVID-19 incidence and any local restrictions in place.
   

NHSE supported regional commissioners of screening services to further support the restoration of all breast screening services. To maximise screening capacity and aid the restoration of screening in 2021-22:

• Open invitations were recommended, rather than timed invitations, in September 2020 to maximise utilisation of screening capacity. These continued to be recommended into 2021-22 in cases where screening services had not fully recovered their screening backlogs and were not inviting women within the required 36 months of their previous screen. Whilst acknowledging that open invitations may lead to lowered overall uptake in comparison to timed, there is a greater likelihood of attendance where a person has responded to an invitation to arrange their own appointment time with the screening provider.
• Following an equality impact assessment undertaken by NHSE, women with learning disabilities continued to be offered timed appointments throughout 2021-22.
• Regional commissioning teams and providers continued to be asked to consider the needs of specific groups relevant to their locality, and the actions required to support them to engage with the screening programme, building upon their existing work with cancer alliances, primary care networks and others.

Data collection and validation processes were completed as normal, therefore, the accuracy and reliability of the statistics published in this report are of a comparable standard to previous years.