• Bolton NHS Foundation Trust is first in the country for accuracy in Breast Screening Pathology Audit
• The Trust is able to offer guarantees to patients during screening, ensuring correct treatment as early as possible
• The service is one of the fastest in the country for results turn around

Royal Bolton Hospital has been named number one in the country for it’s work to check the accuracy of tests carried out in breast screening.

These results recognise that the Trust are able to provide robust guarantees in terms of investigations for patients, improving the quality of care and ensuring patients receive correct treatment at the earliest opportunity.

The BQA carry out an annual Breast Screening Pathology Audit to compare national performance figures.

Good performance in this audit requires excellent working across a number of teams and specialties, from good radiology assessments and biopsies to good pathology interpretation.

Dr Mark Pearson, who has been a Consultant at the Trust for over 30 years, said:

I am particularly proud to be part of a team that is able to offer those guarantees to the patients who are screened positive in the programme. The results are exactly where I would want them to be and are certainly amongst the best results that I have seen throughout my career.

“I want to use this opportunity to shout out about how good a service this is and not only do we produce quality like this, we are seventh fastest in the country in terms of getting the results turned over. Which means that we are one of the only services in GM that is reaching the key performance indicator of turn around.

“I am extremely keen to share our excellent performance as a service with the community of Bolton.

From a histopathology point of view, the audit highlights that the service can produce excellent interpretation quality and turnaround times, all within budget and without locum or outsourcing support.

The full audit is available to read online..