Mayor of Warrington Cllr Jean Flaherty and patient representative Dawn Atherton officially opened new and improved breast screening facilities for Warrington residents on Thursday 22nd June.
The investment to improve the experience of patients by bringing together breast screening in Warrington in a single purpose-built location is the culmination of months of work by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) and a range of other partners.
The additional clinic rooms, new mammography screening machine and extra space created for the service at Bath Street mean patients can now expect reduced waits in an extension to the existing breast screening service in the accessible town centre location. Patients from the Trust’s Experts by Experience programme were invited to input into the design at different points in the project to ensure it meets the varied needs of all patients.
Dawn Atherton, Expert by Experience patient volunteer said: “Being invited to visit Bath Street to discuss the plans and accessible needs and having the opportunity to put forward ideas on improvements that could be made was informative and a positive step forward in ensuring a good patient experience.
“Having a state-of-the-art breast screening facility in the centre of town makes it accessible for many more people and you haven’t got the worry of visiting a hospital which can be daunting and stressful for some.
“For me personally, this development is so important as both my mum and friend are both breast cancer survivors and without screening services like this they wouldn’t be alive today.”
The reconfiguration of the space has also made it possible to create four more clinical rooms and meeting space at Bath Street, paving the way for a range of other health services to be offered from this purpose-built central location in the future.
The development has been supported by investment from Community Health Partnerships (an NHS partner responsible for the build of Bath Street in 2012), Renova Developments Ltd (owned by healthcare investor Fulcrum) and funding from NHS England and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, as well as from Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Simon Constable, Chief Executive of WHH said: “The investment in additional breast screening capacity at Bath Street supports our ambition to deliver more outpatient services from accessible locations in the heart of our communities. The co-location of breast screening services, previously provided in the Victorian Kendrick Wing at Warrington Hospital, also means we are able to screen more patients, enabling us to reduce waits for screening and treatment. We’d like to thank all our partners, without whom the development of these fantastic new facilities would not have been possible.”
Fulcrum CEO, Sarah Beaumont-Smith said: “Bath Street already plays a vital role in supporting community health and the investment in more breast screening capacity and more clinical space will be a huge boost to local residents. We are always looking for ways to increase and improve the facilities available to patients, so it’s fantastic to see these new services now in use at such an important time for community health.”
Wendy Farrington-Chadd, CEO Community Health Partnerships: “It was fantastic to be a part of opening the expanded breast cancer screening clinic at Bath Street Health and Wellbeing Centre, Warrington. Bringing together breast screening services here will allow more women to receive reassurance about their health closer to home.
"The project has also created an additional four new clinical rooms and an interview space which will allow many more services to be delivered in a central location in Warrington and help decrease the current NHS backlog.”
Breast Screening in Warrington is co-ordinated by the Warrington, Halton, St Helens and Knowsley Breast Screening Programme, which is delivered by the team at WHH.
The project at Bath Street is the latest phase of improvement within local breast services and means breast screening appointments no longer need to be offered in Warrington Hospital’s Victorian era Kendrick Wing – a change which was supported during a public consultation exercise in 2022. In 2021, WHH also opened a modern purpose-built Breast Care Centre in the Captain Sir Tom Moore building at Halton.
Breast screening in Warrington will continue to be provided via our mobile unit as well as within the expanded unit within Bath Street.
For information on the routine breast screening offered by the programme please visit www.
