Updated National Policy and Quality Standards for BreastScreen Aotearoa available

BSA logo
The revised standards are now available on the NSU website.
BreastScreen Aotearoa’s (BSA’s) revised National Policy and Quality Standards (NPQS) are now available on the National Screening Unit (NSU) website. The standards outline the requirements necessary to provide a high quality, safe, breast screening programme.

There are now eight overarching standards, including access and participation, cancer detection and information management.

BSA Clinical Leader Dr Marli Gregory says the revision process brought the standards up to date with new technology and changes in best practice. “We also took the opportunity to make the whole document more streamlined and user-friendly.

“It was particularly important to BSA to keep a well woman focus. The NPQS not only set the bar for the technical performance of each provider, but they ensure women attending breast screening are well informed, supported and receive the best care possible.”

Dr Gregory says an important difference in the latest version of the NPQS is that all providers in New Zealand are now using digital mammography rather than film.

“The total digitalisation of the service is a significant milestone and provides a number of benefits, including being able to check the quality of images immediately and being able to send images electronically via a new secure, centralised picture archive and communications system.”

BSA providers will ensure their processes are updated in line with the new standards over the next year and providers will then be externally audited to ensure compliance with the standards.

“The next round of audits also aims to take a quality improvement focus, looking for ways to improve services above and beyond the minimum requirements,” says Dr Gregory.

“Consultation with providers of breast screening services and other interested stakeholders, including consumer representatives, was critical to the success of the project. The NSU team would like to take this opportunity to again thank those who worked with us.”

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Page last updated: 26 February 2014