Managing interval cancers

The new National Health Service Breast Screening Programme Interval Cancer Operational Manual (2008) has recently been launched and is a practical guide for quality assurance reference centres, cancer registries and breast screening units to record and report interval cancers, with the aim of standardising practice across the United Kingdom. Coventry has always been at the forefront of this important work and, as part of the skill mix, the role of collecting and reporting data has been taken on by radiography film-readers. Coventry is the base for four different primary care trusts and the film-readers have links with multidisciplinary team meetings, breast care nurses, pathology and X-ray departments from all these areas, and are also involved with symptomatic mammography and local and regional interval cancer audits. The present poster demonstrates the pathway taken to collect and record information for audit and to forward it to the quality assurance reference centre for regional and national review.