East Midlands community breast pain service shortlisted for award
The East Midlands Breast Pain Pathway National Collaboration has been shortlisted for a HSJ Award in the Primary and community care innovation of the year category.
The community Breast Pain Clinic (cBPC) is the first service of its kind in the UK.
It provides timely support for women experiencing breast pain not related to breast cancer, avoiding unnecessary patient anxiety and saving NHS resources by reducing the number of referrals under the 2-week-wait system.
Health Innovation East Midlands has supported the evaluation of this service.
There is a national mandate to introduce new pathways for patients presenting with breast pain outside of existing suspected breast cancer pathways.
The East Midlands Breast Pain Pathway (EMBPP) includes the following key features:
- Clinics held in a community setting away from diagnostic breast unit
- Triage processes ensure patients with breast pain only and not at increased risk of breast cancer
- Clinical assessment by an experienced breast clinician
- Family history risk assessment
An evaluation at 17 services across 9 Cancer Alliances has confirmed that it is a reproducible and cost-effective pathway for the management of women with breast pain only. Patient feedback from all services has been unanimously positive and no safety concerns have been raised.
A website, available to the public, hosts information about breast pain and its management, as well as a detailed description of the EMBPP and the results of pathway implementation to date:
East Midlands Breast Pain Pathway – East Midlands Cancer Alliance
The CBPC toolkit is now live, accessible to NHS Health Care Professionals aiming to introduce a breast pain service based on the model:
East Midlands Breast Pain Pathway for Professionals – East Midlands Cancer Alliance
The toolkit includes detailed information regarding the EMBPP, describing all aspects of the processes required to introduce and monitor a breast pain service based on the pathway.