UK's breast cancer screening glitch

Abstract

Last May, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that 450,000 women between the ages of 68 and 71 in the UK failed to receive invitations for a final routine breast cancer screening. Of note, women in the UK from the age of 50 who are registered with a family doctor are automatically invited for screening with a letter every three years until their 71st birthday. Patients cannot ask for an appointment themselves until that age; after that, screening requests can be made every three years. As a result of the 450,000 failed invitations it has been estimated that up to 270 women succumbed to the disease. This gross mistake spanned over a period of almost ten years, between 2009 and 2017. The first question is posed … who is to blame? To put it mildly, a computer algorithm failure, involving the programming of people’s ages. The second question arises naturally … how was this glitch revealed? Following an upgrade to the breast screening invitation IT system, which allowed for improved data on the actual ages of the women receiving screening invitations.