I am undertaking the Tour de Manc 100 mile bike ride on the 30th April 2023 for The Manchester Foundation Trust Charity  who are raising funds for the build to beat breast cancer appeal for Wythenshawe Hospital.  Family, friends and clients have received world class treatment at the facility and has such a positive impact on families in the local area.

Manchester Foundation Trust Charity has teamed up with Prevent Breast Cancer to raise £3.5m to build a national training academy for breast cancer professionals and to help save lives.

The ‘Build To Beat Breast Cancer’ appeal will raise funds for a new National Breast Imaging Academy (NBIA) training facility – an extension of the Nightingale Centre at our Wythenshawe Hospital site – to  tackle the challenges facing the breast screening workforce.

Breast imaging workforce shortages are so severe that services around the country are now at risk. Three units in Greater Manchester alone have closed in recent years due to lack of imaging staff, placing even greater pressures on the remaining units.

Demand for breast imaging has increased over the years, but staffing has not increased in line with this. Around 12% of breast radiologist and radiographic posts are vacant nationally (which is higher than the overall NHS workforce gap of 10%) and this is higher in the North West. In the UK, in the next 2-3 years, many senior breast imaging doctors are set to retire.

Our appeal will provide a purpose-built home for the NBIA, delivering the space and cutting-edge facilities required to train the next generation of breast imaging staff in the UK. The build will also enable even greater numbers of healthcare professionals to be trained, and a better quality of hands-on clinical training to be delivered. Not only will it train radiographers, radiologists, breast clinicians, nurses, medical students, apprentices and administrative staff, the facility will expand the unit’s existing imaging capacity for patients by up to 30%.

This means the new build could enable the Nightingale Centre to see an extra 5,000 new patients and 8,000 follow-up patients per year. This would greatly enhance the breast service and save a great many lives.

An investment of this kind will not only directly address workforce shortages in breast imaging and save lives, it will also help level up health inequalities and provide high quality training and job opportunities for the Greater Manchester community, in particular in the socially deprived area of Wythenshawe where the centre will be based.

“Unless we act now and create a building in which to train staff, we will be unable to meet the increased demands over the coming months and years – and more lives will be lost to this disease.” – Dr Mary Wilson, consultant breast radiologist and clinical lead for the National Breast Imaging Academy