BCNA welcomes BreastScreen review, warns on funding

BCNA welcomes the BreastScreen Australia review, but warns current funding will not deliver reform.

Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) welcomes the release of the BreastScreen Australia Review more than 1,000 days after it was first announced, and the agreement of all Australian governments on a new National Strategic Framework. Following commitments outlined at the BreastScreen Australia Conference earlier this year to progress key review recommendations, governments have now set out the framework that will guide the next phase of the program. However, the gap between the scale of reform identified by the review and the investment announced to support it remains significant.

The Australian Government’s own modelling shows reforming BreastScreen Australia could cost up to $2 billion over the next decade. The funding announced to begin this work is $1.3 million.

“The $1.3 million may commence some important policy work, but it is not a national implementation reform package. It will not address the much-needed issues of building the workforce, increasing service capacity or delivering new technology across Australia,” BCNA Director of Policy, Advocacy and Support Services Vicki Durston said.

BCNA welcomes the commitment to begin work on a national annual-screening policy, a National Participation Strategy and a strengthened Quality and Safety Framework. These are important first steps, but they are not a national implementation reform package.

Why this matters

The review confirms BreastScreen Australia remains a trusted program that detects cancer early and improves survival and outcomes. It also found participation remains well short of the 70 per cent target, with poorer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and women in remote and disadvantaged communities.

This is not simply an opportunity to make an already successful program even better. It is a national equity, capacity and implementation challenge. Reform must prioritise equity, invest in new technology and deliver nationally consistent, high-quality breast screening regardless of where a woman lives.

“Women deserve a clear, funded implementation pathway that reflects the scale and urgency of the reform required,” Ms Durston said.

BCNA members must be part of the solution

BCNA will judge the success of this reform by whether more women participate, whether inequities narrow and whether survival and outcomes improve. As reform moves from review to implementation, people with lived experience must remain central to decision-making.

BCNA Consumer Representative Krysty Sullivan said: “I want to acknowledge the enormous amount of work that has gone into this review and, as a consumer, welcome its release but, for women like me, whose cancer was missed by routine 2D screening, the implementation timeframes are painfully slow.”

BCNA looks forward to working with governments, clinicians, researchers and its national consumer network to support the next phase of this work, and will continue to advocate for a modernised national breast screening program that meets the needs of all Australian women, regardless of postcode, cultural background or personal circumstances.