Attention on prevention cervical, breast and bowel screening programmes in Newcastle

In the United Kingdom there are 11 NHS population screening programmes. This report focusses on the cervical, breast and bowel screening programmes.

Healthwatch Newcastle used three techniques to gather views from people living in the areas listed above during autumn 2017. The techniques were focus groups, one to one interviews and surveys.

Healthwatch Newcastle heard from 116 people about the cervical screening programme: 28 of these people said they had a very good (11) or good (17) experience. Where this was qualified, reasons given for good experiences were good staff (7), good information given (1) and straightforward procedure (1).

Healthwatch Newcastle heard from 78 people about the breast screening programme. The most common views expressed when people talked about their experiences was that it was painful/uncomfortable (eight) and embarrassing.

Healthwatch Newcastle heard from 86 people about the bowel screening programme (45 men, 14 women and 27 unknown gender). The most common views expressed when people talked about their experiences was that it was easy to complete (ten), but unpleasant (four) due to the nature of the test.

Below are some recommendations based on the views Healthwatch Newcastle have gathered. The first set of recommendations are to be considered by all three screening programmes, followed by recommendations tailored to the cervical, breast and bowel screening programmes.

1. NHS England should work with Newcastle City Council’s Public Health Team and screening units to ensure that the appropriate bodies are resourced (funding, time, resources and expertise) to provide comprehensive and regular community outreach, particularly to seldom heard groups, men’s groups (for bowel screening) and schools.

2. NHS England should work with Newcastle City Council’s Public Health Team and screening units to explore how the appropriate bodies can be resourced (funding, time, resources and expertise) to train and support community leaders to deliver and sustain health promotion activities in their communities.

3. NHS England should consider incentivising general practices (perhaps via the Quality and Outcomes Framework) to follow up patients by phone who do not take part in screening, to provide information and encouragement.

4. NHS England should work with Clinical Commissioning Groups to explore how all patients receive invite letters in their preferred format (another language, large print, braille, etc.)

5. GP practices and screening units should ensure that robust processes are in place to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities when completing their screening test, as described in the duty to make reasonable adjustments in the Equality Act 2010.

6. If a GP or other health professional sees a patient who is due a screening test in the near future, this should be raised with the patient.

7. GP practices should work with their patient participation groups (PPGs) to consider how they could help practices improve their screening uptake.

8. Newcastle City Council’s Public Health Team to include targeted information about screening programmes in the refugee welcome pack.