Promote breast screening with your patients
GPs and pharmacists are often a patient’s first point of contact for medical advice. This puts you in a key position to encourage regular breast screening in your community.
Early detection leads to better patient outcomes. And we’re here to provide tailored support to help you promote screening to your patients.
Who is eligible?
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Women and trans and gender-diverse (TGD) people aged 50 to 74 without breast symptoms are eligible and invited for a free breast screen every 2 years.
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Women and TGD people aged 40 to 49 and over 74 without any breast symptoms are eligible to have a breast screen, however, are encouraged to speak to a doctor to decide if breast screening is the best option based on personal risk factors.
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Women and TGD people under 40 and over 74 are encouraged to discuss the risks and benefits of screening with their doctors.
Promote screening with patient reminders
Integrating screening reminders into your practice is a simple yet effective way to boost participation. To do that, you can add recall flags to remind your patients at their next consultation that they’re due for a breast screen.
If your practice uses the PEN CS clinical audit tool and receives patient results electronically from BreastScreen Victoria, you can use your system to identify:
- Patients who have never screened (as they’d have no results)
- Lapsed screeners (as they wouldn’t have any results within the last 2 years)
This will help ensure you reach the right patients to promote timely breast health checks.