West Midlands Breast Screening Programme

Outcome Measures: KC63, Coverage

Coverage is a key performance indicator for Primary Care Trusts. The data source for coverage is the KC63 report, which is a standard statistical Korner report required by the Department of Health. It is a cross-sectional report giving a snapshot of the status with respect to the breast screening of women resident in the locality of each call/recall agency (previously Health Authority) as at 31st March of the specified year.

KC63 reports are submitted to the Breast Screening QA Reference Centre, which forwards the information on to the Department of Health after validation. After being amalgamated nationally, coverage data are reported in the NHSBSP’s Annual Statistical Bulletin.

Coverage is influenced by both uptake and round length. Consequently, if a breast screening unit had a low uptake rate and a low coverage, this may be indicative that if uptake was to increase, then coverage would also increase. If a unit had an average or high uptake rate but a low coverage, this may be indicative that the unit’s round length was more than 36 months.

The relationship between coverage and uptake is illustrated below: