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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.
Up to 70% of women over the age of 16 experience breast pain at some stage of their lives, and in 10 to 20 % of cases, it is severe.
There is strong evidence that breast pain, or mastalgia, as a standalone symptom, has no association with breast cancer. However, this presentation within primary care often results in an urgent referral to a 2-week-wait (2WW) breast cancer pathway. This leads to unnecessary patient anxiety, and diagnostic tests and ultimately adds pressure to 2WW that are already running under significant pressure.
The community Breast Pain Clinic (cBPC) is a novel service, and the first in the UK, tackling the rising number of breast symptomatic 2-week wait (2WW) referrals. These clinics aim to improve patient care and experience while simultaneously providing a system wide improvement. To determine whether the clinics can be adopted and rolled out at further sites, the evaluation utilised quantitative analysis of cBPC data and patient reported outcome Measures (PROMs).
The optimisation of cancer pathways has become increasingly important, not only due to the already highly demanded services, but also with the introduction of the Faster Diagnosis Standard, a new NHS England standard which measures performance on three metrics: The 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard (75%), a 62-day referral to treatment standard (85%) and a 31-day decision to treat to treatment standard (96%) (NHS England, 2023). It is becoming increasingly important to decongest these pathways and move breast pain only patients out of suspected cancer referral pathways.
It was implemented within Joined up Care Derbyshire (University Hospitals of Derby and Burton and Chesterfield Royal Hospital), based on an initial pilot by Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust, followed by Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.
The evaluation showed how variations of staffing models can impact the effectiveness and outcomes of the programme.
View the East Midlands Cancer Alliance website dedicated to supporting the East Midlands Breast Pain Pathway (EMBPP)
For queries and to receive a copy of the full evaluation report please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.