The feasibility of implementing risk stratification into a national breast cancer screening programme: a focus group study investigating the perspectives of healthcare personnel responsible for delivery

Background Providing women with personalized estimates of their risk of developing breast cancer, as part of routine breast cancer screening programmes, allows women at higher risk to be offered more frequent screening or drugs to reduce risk. For this to be feasible, the concept and practicalities have to be acceptable to the healthcare professionals who would put it in to practice. The present research investigated the acceptability to healthcare professionals who were responsible for the implementation of this new approach to screening in the ongoing BC-Predict study. Methods Four focus groups were conducted with 29 healthcare professionals from a variety of professional backgrounds working within three breast screening services in north-west England. An inductive-manifest thematic analysis was conducted. Results Overall, healthcare professionals viewed the implementation of personalised breast cancer risk estimation as a positive step, but discussion focused on concerns. Three major themes are presented. (1) Service constraints highlights the limited capacity within current breast services and concerns about the impact of additional workload. (2) Risk communication concerns the optimal way to convey risk to women within resource constraints. (3) Accentuating inequity discusses how risk stratification could decrease screening uptake for underserved groups. Conclusions Staff who implemented risk stratification considered it a positive addition to routine screening. They considered it essential to consider improving capacity and demands on healthcare professional time. They highlighted the need for skilled communication of risks and new pathways of care to ensure that stratification could be implemented in financially and time constrained settings without impacting negatively on women.