Answered By: Shazia Arif
Last Updated: 13 Mar, 2026     Views: 14

This information is collated by NHS England and available on the GOV UK website.

Policy paper

Tackling the uptake challenge: a review of progress and next steps - GOV.UK

 

Data

The latest NHS England data for 2024/2025, published in February 2025, showed that: 

  • Uptake of invitations by women aged 50-<71 increased to 70.6%, up from 70.0% in 2023/24, continuing to meet the acceptable threshold of 70%

  • Uptake increased in all regions ranging from 63.4% (London) to 73.3% (South East). The number of first invitations for women aged 50-<71 increased by 6.9% from 2023/24, the majority of first invitations were in the 50-52 years age group, up by 7.4%. 

  • 1.94 million women who received an invitation were screened by the Programme (excludes short term recalls or self-referrals), up from 1.75 million in 2023/24. 

Self-referrals:  

  • 175,351 women self-referred for screening, an increase from 169,119 in 2023/24. 63.6% of self-referrals are women aged 71 years or over. The remainder are women who would have been invited aged 50-<71 years, but may not have accepted at that time and then contacted the service later. 

  • Women who self-refer are recorded in total screening activity but are not included in invitation and uptake statistics due to their own request for screening. Consequently, the number of self-referrals in women aged 50<71 has a small negative impact on the rate of screening uptake nationally. If these women were included in reported rates, the overall 50-<71 uptake rate of the Programme for 2024/25 would be expected to increase by up to 2.3 percentage points with 63,656 more women included. 

 

Guidance

Breast screening: identifying inequalities - GOV.UK