National Breast Screening Programme: ‘Mammographers have a prime opportunity’
Radiographer Lindsay Batty-Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. After years of treatment and work in healthcare, Lindsay was able to share her journey with others earlier this year in the NHS’s first ever breast cancer screening awareness campaign
National Breast Screening Programme: ‘Mammographers have a prime opportunity’
Radiographer Lindsay Batty-Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. After years of treatment and work in healthcare, Lindsay was able to share her journey with others earlier this year in NHS England's first ever breast cancer screening awareness campaign
On 17 February 2025, NHS England took an important step forward in the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer by launching its first breast cancer screening awareness campaign. Supported by leading charity Breast Cancer Now, the campaign hopes to highlight the benefits of breast screening for catching cancer early, as figures show more than four in 10 invited for the first time do not attend their screening.
With adverts across radio, TV and online spaces, the campaign aims to improve screening attendance to 80 per cent of those eligible by 2026, with nearly a million more women being screened – which could help detect more than 7,500 breast cancers at earlier stages.
The campaign sees celebrities such as Newsnight anchor Victoria Derbyshire, broadcaster and presenter Julia Bradbury and Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas writing ‘unofficial’ invitation letters to women, sharing their personal experiences with breast screening.
While cancer survivors, NHS staff and TV doctors share their stories in a series of films, Synergy caught up with radiographer Lindsay Batty-Smith, a mammographer who was herself diagnosed with breast cancer and who helped kickstart the entire campaign.
Lindsay is a semi-retired radiographer and mammographer at King’s College Hospital in London, where she got involved with a local programme to improve uptake of breast screening appointments by featuring patient stories – including her own.
King’s College Hospital’s local campaign, funded by the Cancer Alliance, saw impressive success, with their online videos receiving 27,000 views and resulting in a 54 per cent increase in visits to the website. On the back of its success, NHS England reached out for a national rollout of their initial campaign, expanding the reach of the programme massively.
A personal experience
Lindsay is from Peckham and works primarily in the private sector while serving as bank staff for King’s College Hospital. She also serves as Southwark public governor at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Southwark community health ambassador – which is where her involvement with the breast screening initiative began.
Having worked in such a diverse set of roles, Lindsay says she has a “360 degree” point of view on health screening – at a clinical level, at a governance level, and also at the level of being a patient. Because, at the age of 41, Lindsay found a lump in her breast. Luckily she caught it early, and was able to go to King’s College Hospital, see a mammographer and receive treatment from 1999 until 2004. Now, she is happily cancer free.
Nine years later, when Lindsay turned 50, she was entered into the National Breast Screening Programme, which provides a free breast screening service for women aged between 50 and 71.
“Regular screening reassures me that I’m cancer free,” Lindsay says. “It’s quick and easy. Our problem is getting women to take part in the screening programme.”
It was at King’s College Hospital that Lindsay first crossed paths with Francesca Fiennes, a health promotion specialist at the trust.
The breast screening initiative
King’s College Hospital provides breast screening services to patients across London, but uptake was low, particularly post pandemic.
After Francesca joined the team in April 2023, she was able to secure funding from the South East London Cancer Alliance to produce new, more inclusive breast screening uptake campaigns, with a project that shared patient experiences through a series of video messages. “We’ve been working really hard to increase uptake, and also to look at some of our resources,” she explains. “How are we reaching people, and how represented do people feel?”
While those initial videos had an impact, Francesca worried that there hadn’t been an updated, inclusive campaign featuring a range of different identities. Targeted work had been produced during the pandemic, but much of that content was no longer applicable. “Diverse patient stories can really impact people,” she says. “We wanted something that was more personable, that featured people who had been diagnosed with cancer sharing their experiences in a way that was motivating and empowering.
“We wanted to strike a balance between giving people the facts and highlighting how lifesaving breast screening is. Rather than us going out and talking to people, we wanted to get someone who people can put themselves in the shoes of and envisage that experience.”
So, in April 2024, Francesca and her team created a campaign designed to reach out to people from across South East London who faced barriers to breast screening. Working with videographer Luke Lebihan, the team worked on a concept that focused on filming in people’s homes and out in their communities where they could share their lived experiences. “He was really pivotal in bringing that message to life,” she says.
As they were planning this series of video messages, Francesca was introduced to Lindsay, in May of that year, who took part in the campaign not as someone who had been diagnosed through the breast screening programme, but as someone who had been through cancer, and who now found the programme to be reassuring.
Also involved in the video messages were Philomena Ofodu from Bermondsey and Humaira Sabahat from Bexley – local patients who had gone through the breast cancer screening process and were now keen to make sure others took up that same privilege. “When I received a letter inviting me for a mammogram appointment, I brushed it aside,” Philomena recalls. “Weeks later, I received a completely unrelated call from my GP asking me to come in immediately for a blood test. The urgency in his voice reminded me to put my health first, and prompted me to book the mammogram appointment I had been putting off. And as a result, the doctors found I had stage two breast cancer.
“My cancer diagnosis changed my life but, because it was detected early, it was treatable. If I had not made that appointment, I might not be here now. I have the greatest gratitude to be part of this campaign, and to share my experience as a cancer survivor. It’s so important we reach out to women and let them know that these appointments should be their number one priority.”
Lindsay adds: “I was very, very proud and privileged to be involved. I know that sounds really corny, but I am. I’m incredibly proud to be a radiographer and a mammographer. I’ve been qualified since 1978, so I’ve got years of experience in the world of radiography.
“My life was saved by finding the lump, being treated and then going into screening. Knowing how screening saves lives, I jumped at the chance to help with this health promotion.
“As mammographers, we have an absolute prime opportunity to spread the word. Not only to the people we are actually imaging, and ensuring they have a good experience, but also to all our friends, our contacts, our colleagues, our families, to the wider community, chats at the bus stop, whatever. We have a chance to demystify the actual mammogram process itself, which I think puts a lot of people off.”
Francesca continues: “Having someone who’s seen both sides talking about their experience is important, because there are some barriers. People get overwhelmed by healthcare, particularly those who’ve had negative experiences. In our video, we feature two of our mammographers who are full-time staff at King’s.
“We wanted a balance of sharing professional perspectives while also having those friendly faces. We want people to feel like the people who are screening them are also friendly and welcoming, because that can be intimidating. We’ve got such an amazing staff group at King’s.”
A national rollout
The video campaign was officially launched in October during Breast Cancer Awareness Month – and since then, visits to King’s College Hospital’s screening service page are up 54 per cent year on year. From 2023 to 2024, that figure was only 7 per cent.
While traffic peaked in October, the website has seen a consistent increase in visits throughout the past six months. At the end of January NHS England contacted the team at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. They had been filming their own series of promotional videos for breast screening uptake, and were interested in the local insights Lindsay and Francesca had.
Having seen the videos and the format they had gone with, NHSE asked Lindsay and the other patients who had been filmed to get involved with the national campaign to develop their stories for sharing across the country while retaining that focus on patient stories and lived experiences. “It’s been really nice for us at King’s to see that some of those people we made connections with and found in our area were involved in the national campaign,” says Francesca. “It shows that our local campaign had an impact. And I think they actually work quite well side by side because, if people see the national campaign, they might go to our local page and see that information there as well.”
'Most people know someone who's got breast cancer or who has died from breast cancer or is going through treatment'
The importance of breast screening
Breast screening can be scary, says Lindsay. The procedure, while quick, can be uncomfortable – people come in and have a physical inspection and a scan during a period of intense emotion and potentially fear of cancer.
But, she adds, coming in can save your life. “It’s a friendly environment,” she continues. “People are scared; most people know someone who’s got breast cancer or who has died from breast cancer or is going through treatment. When I am doing mammography, I can have people in a terrible state.
“So I want to stress that mammographers are very skilled at understanding and being empathic with that. The procedure is very quick. Regular breast screening is one of the best ways to spot cancers before you can see it – when it’s too small to feel.
“If it wasn’t for screening, I wouldn’t be here. If I didn’t go to my screening appointments, I may become ill again and not know.”
Lindsay tells Synergy how empathetic the team is to the difficulties people face with putting their healthcare first. Whether that stems from a fear of or discomfort with the procedure, whether it comes from other priorities forcing patients to make a decision, or whether it comes from a concern that their gender or racial identity might impact the exam in some way – these concerns should be acknowledged, she says.
“But I want to also bring out the expertise of mammographers,” Lindsay adds. “A lot of the public don’t know what a radiographer is – they think we mend radios! Mammographers are highly trained specialist radiographers, and they’ve specialised at post-graduate level. They are highly skilled.
“And it’s not just mammographers, it’s also the assistant practitioners. I want to give a really big shout out to the mammographers and their teams that are very skilled in helping people who are terrified of the actual procedure.”
That expertise extends to ensuring anyone who comes in for a breast screening is treated with respect and that accommodations are made to ensure they have a positive experience. Ensuring transgender patients are addressed by their preferred pronouns, turning down the lights for autistic patients and adjustments as necessary for patients with physical or mental disabilities – it is all, Lindsay says, part of the job. “We’ve got to get you through the front door,” she insists. “And if it’s that kind of health inequality that is holding you up? We want to help eradicate that.”
More about the National Breast Screening Programme
The National Breast Screening Programme provides a free breast screening service for women aged between 50 and 71.
Earlier this year King’s College London NHS Foundation Trust and NHS England produced a series of video messages seeking to improve awareness of the importance of breast screenings by sharing patient stories and reading out written letters from women diagnosed with breast cancer directed at those invited to breast screenings.
Regular breast screening is one of the best ways to spot a cancer that is too small to feel or see yourself – it saves around 1,300 lives each year in the UK. In the meantime, if you have any symptoms you are worried could be a sign of breast cancer, have a chat with your GP as soon as possible.
When diagnosed at the earliest stage, 98 per cent of women survive their breast cancer for five years or more.
Find out more about the National Breast Screening Programme online here.
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