Women’s health concerns amid low attendance to life-saving breast cancer screenings in Doncaster

In 2023/24, only 66.8 per cent of women participated in breast screenings – below the ‘acceptable’ level of 70 per cent and the ‘achievable’ level of 80 per cent.

HWB chair, councillor Nigel Ball, said: “Clearly, we are unacceptable in Doncaster… there is a fair bit of work to do there in improving women’s health.

“We know what the band is for something that’s okay and that is not okay.”

Doncaster’s director of public health, Rachael Leslie, said some of the work to improve attendance to breast screenings was showing promise.

She told the board the effectiveness of a mobile service had bettered her own expectations.

There were calls for more community-orientated support for increasing breasts screening uptake.

One attendee to the HWB said: “It’s not just about a health response that’s needed, it’s a community response.

“Communities are really well placed to support women to their appointments and provide their stories.

“Sometimes, a bus fare is the difference between a women getting screened and not getting screened.”

The data was presented to the board today (March 13, 2025) in the Health Protection Assurance Annual Report.

Other concerns were raised about vaccine uptake for the MMR vaccines and Pertussis.

Consultant Dr Victor Joseph told HWB members there was a lower-than-ideal uptake in MMR2 vaccines.

According to the report, uptake for the MMR1 vaccine, administered at 24 months, was at 91.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2024.

However, uptake for MMR2, administered at five-years-of-age, was down at 84.3 per cent at the same point in time.

Dr Joseph said both were a “gradual increase” on the first quarter of 2024.