Hundreds of women at high risk of breast cancer may have missed screening appointments due to an error by NHS Lothian.
Death, cancer, disease, always jumps perkily to the front of the Reporting Scotland agenda even if it’s a ‘may not have been informed’ story at this stage.
Readers may remember when they accused NHS Tayside’s oncology department of being dysfunctional but were then shown to have more so themselves, by a St Andrews professor and the data.
Here are some facts the Reporting Scotland team did not fancy using:
Using the EASR age standardised mortality rate per 100 000 person-years at risk
- Lothian15.5
- Ayr&Arran 16.6
- GG&C 16.9
- Scotland average 17.1
- Tayside 19.5
- Lanarkshire 20.6
- Highland and Argyll 22.1
- Orkney 22.4
- Shetland 25
Only Fife at 13.4, Forth Valley 14.9, Grampian 14.2, W Isles 14.7 had a lower mortality rate in the most recent figures from 2018:
https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Cancer-Statistics/Breast/#cancer-of-the-breast
Talking-up Scotland 
My wife and I saw this and both pretty much said, at the same time, another story based on “may”, “might”, “accused” etc. Par for the course.
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If they have already been identified as ‘high risk’, probably meaning they are in the genetic risk cohort, then they will be on a different ‘family history’ care pathway and already know about their scheduled screenings, prophylactic risk reducing surgery choices, etc. For the rest of the population, last time I looked, most breast lumps, etc are found on self-examination so therefore it is most important that women self-examine. I cant overstate the devastation of a cancer diagnosis, but this ill-informed scare-mongering by Distorting Scotland is beyond contempt.
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I tried opening your link on your previous posting ‘re Pete Wishart but no joy .
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