MORE THAN 95 per cent of women referred to breast disease services in 2010 were seen within two weeks, new figures show.
A report by the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP), to be released next week, shows almost 38,000 women were seen at the State’s eight symptomatic breast disease clinics last year.
The Key Performance Indicators Report for NCCP Symptomatic Breast Disease Services 2010outlines the national data for the first time.
More than 12,500 women were referred as urgent cases and 95 per cent of these were seen within the target time of two weeks. A further 25,000 were seen as non-urgent cases and more than 95 per cent of these were seen within the 12-week target time. Just over 2,000, or 5 per cent, of the women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
The eight clinics are at the Beaumont, Mater, St James’s and St Vincent’s hospitals in Dublin, and at Waterford, Cork, Galway and Limerick hospitals. Galway University Hospital, which serves the west and northwest, saw just under 8,000 new cases of which more than 2,400 were urgent. It diagnosed 333 cases of cancer.
The clinic at the Mater was the second busiest in the State, seeing 5,240 new cases with 2,215 categorised as urgent. Some 215 cases led to a diagnosis of cancer.
Though Cork University Hospital had a similar number of cases to the Mater, 5,101, it diagnosed almost three times the number of cancers, at 336.
The NCCP has said following the centralisation of services and the national quality review services undertaken by the Health Information and Quality Authority, the eight centres, along with the NCCP, had put enormous efforts into improving quality.
The findings of the report greatly assisted in providing assurance to patients attending the centres and to the cancer programme that a high-quality service is being provided by all eight, it said.
