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Breast screening: professional guidance

Standards and guidance for health professionals, managers and commissioners working in the NHS breast screening programme.

Updates to this page

From:
NHS England
Published:
1 June 2015
Last updated:
29 August 2025
Show all updates

  1. Added the following reports in the 'Equipment evaluations' section: • technical evaluation reports • practical evaluation reports

  2. Added link to 'Attended not screened' document to the service specific guidance collection.

  3. Link to 'NHS Breast Screening Programme Guidance: Biopsy testing guidance' page added under the Equipment quality control and testing section.

  4. Added the position statement on Breast Density to the collection

  5. Added 'Breast screening: identifying and reducing inequalities'.

  6. Added 'screening office management' to service-specific guidance.

  7. Addition of new guidance on reporting equipment issues, faults and incidents to Equipment quality control and testing section.

  8. Added link to Association of Breast Surgery (ABS) for 'Quality assurance guidelines for surgeons in breast screening'.

  9. Added guidance on Partial or incomplete screening mammography.

  10. Added 'Hologic 3Dimensions digital mammography system in 2D mode', 'IMS Giotto Class digital mammography system in 2D mode' and 'GE Senographe Pristina digital mammography system in 2D mode'.

  11. Added 3 new reports: Implementing remote image reading, Reporting breast images from home and Remote radiographic supervision.

  12. Added Breast screening: quality assurance guidelines for breast pathology services.

  13. Added Hologic 3Dimensions in tomosynthesis mode, Siemens Mammomat Revelation evaluation and IMS Giotto Class evaluation.

  14. Added Issuing provisional or verbal pathology reports to Good practice in breast screening section.

  15. Added new guidance on overseas recruitment for local breast screening services.

  16. Added GE Healthcare Senographe Pristina DBT system evaluation.

  17. Added Siemens Inspiration PRIME system and GE Healthcare Senographe Pristina 2D system.

  18. Added link to guidance on opting out of breast screening.

  19. Added Fujifilm Amulet Innovality DBT and Hologic 3Dimensions in 2D mode system practical evaluations.

  20. Added 'Breast screening: transferring specimens between laboratories' document.

  21. Added 'Breast screening: failsafe batches' to Programme Guidelines section.

  22. Addition of guidance for clinical nurse specialists to document collection

  23. Added 'Breast screening: GE Senographe Pristina DBT system evaluation' report.

  24. Added 'Breast screening: Siemens Mammomat Inspiration VB60' to Equipment Technical Evaluations list.

  25. Added 'Breast screening programme: supporting women with learning disabilities'.

  26. Added 'Breast screening: IMS Giotto Class DBT system'.

  27. Addition of new guidance on leading a breast screening programme to document collection

  28. Addition of new ergonomics in mammography guidance to document collection.

  29. Addition of Breast screening: how to record vacuum-assisted excisions to document collection

  30. Added technical evaluation of the Fujifilm AMULET Innovality digital breast tomosynthesis system.

  31. Added out-of-area guidance and duty of candour toolkit to collection.

  32. Added 'Breast screening: radiation risk with digital mammography' to new 'research and reviews' group.

  33. Added interval cancer guidance and programme specific operating model.

  34. Added implants imaging guidance and consolidated standards.

  35. Added arbitration guidance.

  36. Technical evaluation of Siemans Inspiration PRIME mammography system added.

  37. Added digital tomosynthesis system evaluation.

  38. Added 2 new documents under equipment.

  39. Added previously-published quality assurance documents to breast screening professional guidance.

  40. First published.

Breast screening: commissioning and testing of X-ray systems is published by Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Guidance on the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017 is available for employers and health professionals who carry out medical radiological procedures.

The latest information relating to guidance on safe clinical practice in breast screening, in compliance with the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposures) Regulations 2017 (IR(ME)R) was last updated in January 2023.

Programme pathway and standards

Position statement on breast density in the NHS Breast Screening Programme

Improving coverage and uptake

Service-specific guidance

View our information for the public about breast screening. Many of these resources are also available in A4 PDF format so services can print them off for clients.

Discipline-specific guidance

Programme standards and guidance for breast pathology can be found on the Royal College of Pathologists website.

Quality assurance guidelines for surgeons in breast screening are available from the Association of Breast Surgery (ABS). Search for ‘QA guidelines for surgeons’ in the Information Hub.

Imaging and reporting

Assessment

Multidisciplinary team (MDT)

Interval cancers and duty of candour

Screening women at very high risk

Research and reviews

Equipment quality control and testing

Screening equipment and medical physics services

Equipment evaluations

The National Co-ordinating Centre for the Physics of Mammography (NCCPM) website hosts full copies of the evaluation reports for mammography equipment currently used within the NHS Breast Screening Programme:

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