MORE than 10,000 women were not up to date with potentially life-saving breast screening in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole during the year leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, figures show.

The NHS breast screening programme sees women aged between 50 and 71 invited every three years to undergo a mammogram (X-ray) designed to detect cancers that are too small to see or feel.

The latest available NHS Digital figures show that 76 per cent of eligible women in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole were up to date with their screenings at the end of March 2020 – meaning roughly 10,536 were not.

It meant health services in the area achieved the national minimum target of 70 per cent uptake but fell short of the 80 per cent the NHS says all services should aim for.

Lisa Bisset, clinical director for the Dorset breast screening service, delivered by University Hospitals Dorset, said: “Screening saves lives, and we work hard to make attending our screening appointments as simple as possible, including the provision of four mobile screening units found throughout the county.

“The Dorset breast screening service consistently sees well above the national average of women invited to the voluntary programme, and we’re pleased that between April 2019 and March 2020 more than three quarters of women that were invited chose to attend their appointment.

“There is a wide range of reasons given for choosing not to take up a screening invitation. The period this data covers includes the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, which may have deterred some from attending healthcare settings.

“Breast screening will form a key element of the innovative new outpatient assessment clinic being established in the Dolphin Centre in Poole which is due to open by the end of this year. We’re confident that this convenient location will encourage even more women to be screened.

“If you are invited to take part in the breast screening programme in Dorset please do so – yours could be one of the 1,300 lives saved nationally by the NHS breast screening programme every year.”

With Breast Cancer Awareness Month underway, experts are urging women across the UK to check for signs and symptoms of the disease and for those eligible to take up their invitations for routine screenings.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive of charity Breast Cancer Now, said a decline in screening uptake across the UK in recent years was already a "concern" prior to the pandemic, adding the charity estimates 1.2 million fewer women had a screening in 2020 due to coronavirus-related disruption.

She said: "We must do all we can to increase the number of women taking up their invitation to breast screening, including text reminders, more convenient appointments and improving awareness of the programme."

"While screening comes with some risks to be aware of, we encourage women to attend their appointments when invited, including during the pandemic."

The most recent PHE figures at local authority level, which span a three-year period, show there were 97 breast cancer deaths in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole women aged up to 75 between 2017 and 2019 – equating to 18 in every 100,000 women in the age group.