Encouraging participation in breast-screening

BREAST cancer is the most common form of cancer among women in the UK resulting in 15,000 deaths annually. The recommendations of the Forrest Report 1 inaugurated the development of the first national breast screening service in the world. How ever, a minimum uptake of seventy per cent is required if the scheme is to achieve its objective of significantly reducing mortality from breast cancer by detecting the disease at an earlier stage. Green 2 identifies three sets of factors — predisposing, en abling and reinforcing — which combine to influence health behaviour. In this paper, we use Green's fac tors as a framework to examine how the breast screening service was set up in Manchester and we report the findings of a pilot consumer satisfaction survey to illuminate the issues involved.