Breast screening units set to appear at Merry Hill Shopping Centre car park
A new collaboration between Breast Cancer Now, NHS England and Asda is set to help increase the availability of breast screening.
The cross-sector collaboration will provide new, alternative locations for the mobile breast screening units, to be used by the NHS Breast Screening programme, run by NHS England.
Asda has made available its car parks, in specific places such as Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill, in a bid to increase convenience and visibility of vital breast screening services in England.
The announcement was made as part of an Asda parliamentary event, hosted by Matt Vickers MP, which focussed on supporting community organisations, utilising store space and fundraising for national charities.
This initiative launches in Asda’s 27th year of supporting breast cancer charities through its Tickled Pink Partnership.
Asda is currently hosting three mobile breast screening vans in England, as well as one in Scotland, and looks forward to working with regional commissioning teams across England to identify further locations where mobile breast screening vans can make a difference.
This will be based on an assessment by local breast screening services, and should the offer be right for specific communities, work in lockstep with the routine invitation cycle.
This positive initiative will also help contribute towards wider efforts to increase visibility and awareness of the importance of breast screening and encourage more women to take up their breast screening invite.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said: “We’re delighted that NHS England and our long-term partner, Asda, are working together to improve the convenience of vital breast screening, with Asda offering many of their car parks as locations for breast screening vans in England.
“Breast screening is a key tool for detecting breast cancer early, as critically, the sooner the disease is diagnosed, the more likely treatment is to be successful.
"As such, we welcome this important initiative which will help improve people’s awareness of breast screening and could provide this vital service in new areas of the community.”
Dr Colette Marshall, NHS Midlands medical director for commissioning, which includes screening, said: “Screening is an effective way to detect cancers at an earlier stage and it is in part thanks to our national breast screening programme that survival rates for breast cancer are so high.
“Today’s figures show more than 20,000 women were diagnosed and able to get treatment because they attended breast screening check-ups last year, yet almost half of West Midlands women are not taking up their screening invite and booking an appointment.
“We are pleased that Asda has provided its Merry Hill car park as a convenient location for a breast screening mobile unit and hope it encourages more people to come along.
"So please, if you have been invited, book an appointment at your local screening service or mobile unit as soon as possible.”
