Invites to attend breast cancer screenings are currently being sent to women living in areas of Armley.
Anyone who has received an invitation for a breast screening us being urged to book their appointment as soon as possible.
Every three years, women in the city aged between 47 and 73 years old are routinely invited to undertake a screening, which involves a mammogram X-ray.
The aim of the mammogram procedure is to detect any small changes in breast tissue that may indicate cancers that are too small to be seen or felt by the woman herself or a doctor.
Cancer Wise Leeds is a project to improve participation in the screening programmes for breast cancer, bowel cancer and cervical cancer in Leeds.
The project is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, led by Leeds City Council and delivered in partnership with the Leeds Cancer Programme.
Six screening and awareness coordinators are working within Primary Care Networks and with communities across Leeds to better understand how the screening process could be improved to meet their needs.
Councillor Salma Arif, Leeds City Council’s Executive Member with responsibility for Public Health and Active Lifestyles, said:
“Through different partnership initiatives such as Cancer Wise Leeds we are working extremely hard as a city to not only increase uptake in screenings, but also support various initiatives focusing on the key areas of prevention and awareness.
“Screening plays a hugely vital role in detecting cancer early, and we would urge anyone who has been invited for a breast screening in Leeds to please book their appointment immediately.”
Breast screening saves around 1,300 lives each year in the UK.
Do go for breast screening! Don’t be frightened about what might be found, if a change is found it could save your life, it saved mine. If you don’t go that won’t be possible.
This is a great initiative – everyone should be encouraged to go. But, unless it’s changed since I booked mine a couple of weeks ago, there is nowhere in West Leeds that offers the service. The nearest is St James’ Hospital (not easy to access from this side of town if you don’t have a car), then Seacroft and Otley.