NHS launches first-ever breast screening campaign to help detect thousands of cancers earlier.

The NHS in England has launched its first-ever awareness campaign to highlight the benefits of screening and encourage more women to make the most of regular mammograms, as figures show more than four in ten (46.3%) invited for the first time don’t act on their invitation.

The campaign – supported by leading charity Breast Cancer Now – launches with a new advert across TV, radio and online to highlight that screening can detect any cancers as early as possible, while providing reassurance and relief to millions of women who get the all-clear.

New NHS estimates suggest that if screening attendance could be improved to 80% of those eligible next year (2025/26), nearly a million more women (around 925,000) could be screened, compared to 2022/23 – with over 7,500 additional breast cancers detected at an earlier stage, when they are more treatable.

The campaign comes as a new survey of 2,000 women for the NHS showed that almost 40% rarely or never talk about breast screening with their female friends and families, and almost a quarter (24%) of women said they wouldn’t attend if they didn’t already have symptoms like a lump.

More than a fifth (21%) also said that embarrassment at being topless in front of someone would prevent them from attending. Concerns about screening being painful (18.5%) also feature. However, 83.2% said they would attend breast screening if they were invited.

As part of efforts to drive uptake of breast screening, the NHS is launching a new “ping and book” service, with women already starting to get alerts to their phones via the NHS App to remind them they are due or overdue an appointment, with new functionality being developed to enable millions to book screening directly through the NHS App next year.

The NHS is diagnosing more people than ever before with cancer at an early stage, and latest monthly figures show the NHS met the cancer faster diagnosis standard in November for the eighth month out of the last ten, with 77% of people getting the all clear or a cancer diagnosis within four weeks.

NHS England confirmed last month that the performance standard would be increased so that 80% of patients receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 4 weeks by March 2026. This change will see around 100,000 more patients who are referred for cancer checks receive a diagnosis or the all-clear within 4 weeks next year.