Lack of funding and declining numbers of radiologists means delay in breast cancer treatment.
Women may suffer a delay in finding out that they have breast cancer because the NHS is struggling with a serious and worsening lack of radiologists and radiographers, according to health experts.
There are fears that the NHS's breast cancer screening programme will not be able to cope with the growing numbers of women who will require mammograms in coming years when the age of eligibility is extended from 50-70 to 43-73.
The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) said there was a "looming workforce crisis facing breast cancer screening and diagnostic services" in the NHS. Difficulty getting enough staff could have a severe impact, it said.
Staff shortages are so common that almost one in 10 (8%) consultant posts in NHS breast radiology services are unfilled and a quarter of breast cancer screening programme units operate with just two or one breast radiologists, according to RCR surveys.
"The skill of breast radiologists in interpreting mammograms and other complex scans is vital to the early detection and diagnosis of breast cancer, as well as in the delivery of cancer screening programmes. Without more breast radiologists to tackle this increasing demand we cannot hope to achieve the best possible health outcomes for patients," said Dr Hilary Dobson, the chair of the British Society of Breast Radiology.
A separate report, by the breast cancer screening programme itself, found that15% of posts among radiographers in England who carry out mammograms were unfilled and that 65% of screening units had vacancies for such staff. The NHS needed another 70 whole-time-equivalent radiographers specialising in mammography on top of its existing 615, it said.
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