Public Health Wales (PHW) has released the latest figures pertaining to its screening programmes for 2018-2019. Last year, PHW issued >940,000 screening invitations to eligible individuals across its seven national screening programmes. Two-thirds of the invited individuals accepted the screening invitations.
The greatest rise in uptake rates from the previous year was seen for the Wales Abdominal Aortic Aneurism Screening Programme (+1.6 per cent) and Bowel Screening Wales (+1.6 per cent). For the Diabetic Eye Screening programme, 2500 more individuals took up their screening offer than the previous year. The uptake rates for Newborn Hearing Screening and Newborn Bloodspot Screening remained extremely high at 99.4 per cent and 99.5 per cent, respectively. There was a 0.3 per cent decline in the number of eligible women attending Breast Test Wales for breast screening. Cervical Screening Wales programme witnessed a rise of 0.7 per cent in the uptake of cervical screening.
Other highlights of 2019 included the #LoveYourCervix social media campaign which encouraged women to undergo cervical screening and introduced the faecal immunochemical test for bowel cancer screening.
Dr Sharon Hillier, Director of PHW Screening Division, said: "It’s a real testament to staff working across the Screening Division that we have seen these figures increase across the majority of our programmes this year."
