‘It could save your life’ - Nearly 6,000 women in Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike invited for breast cancer screening

The Pennine Breast Screening programme, in association with Bradford Teaching Hospitals, will write to 5,894 women, usually aged between 50 and 70, who are registered to a GP at surgeries in Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike.

Those that are eligible will receive a letter in the post before June 2024, where they will be advised to then make an appointment for a mammogram at the free service’s base in Cleckheaton’s Tesco car park, as “it could save their life.”

Julie Stein Hodgins, a radiographer at Bradford Teaching Hospitals who specialises in breast work, said:

“Please don’t put your letter in a pile. Ring for your appointment as soon as you get that letter. If you’re a busy woman, or you can’t see or feel anything, or think it won’t happen to you and everything is alright, we want you to come along. It could save your life.

“If you think of a lemon, inside a lemon is a little pip. You can’t see it and you can’t feel it, but if it’s in there the mammogram will find it. That’s my way of describing it.

“It is all about early detection. We want to find the things that you can’t see or feel.

The unit is in Cleckheaton until June and is there every three years, with figures showing 66 per cent of those eligible taking up an appointment in 2021, down from the 75 per cent uptake in 2018. Other sites are also available.

“We do want you to come out,” Julie advised. “Most of you won’t have breast cancer but if your friend comes along because you have encouraged her to go and we find a really small cancer, her survival rates are probably 98 to 99 per cent.

“Whereas if she waited until she had a symptom, then she may not have as many treatment options as when it has been found through screening.”

She added: “Also, if you are not at the right age for screening, please #knowyournormal, check once a month and, if something is different, don’t be scared to go to your GP. Over 70? Please ring us if you would like an appointment.

“I would also like to say thank you to Tesco for having us in their car park. It is great that local women have an option of going to a site that is local to them.”

The GP surgeries involved in the scheme are Parkview, Greenway, Cleckheaton Group Practice, Liversedge Health Centre, Cook Lane and Brookroyd.

For further information visit: https://www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk/pennine-breast-services/ or telephone 01274 365521.