The national PACS programme has been supporting the NHS National Breast Screening programme's efforts to implement digital mammography across England.

Local breast screening services are delivered through a network of 82 local breast screening programmes and these are increasingly introducing some form of digital mammography. About 2m women are screened each year and this number is increasing. Digitisation is seen as being essential to helping the life-saving service cope with what are expected to be major increases in their breast screening workload.

This is where PACS comes in. The national PACS programme is working with the strategic health authorities, trusts and breast screening units, local service providers and PACS suppliers to provide a cost effective method of securely storing the digital images produced within the National Breast Screening Service.

"Local breast screening programmes are free to choose how to store their digital images and many are concluding that it does make sense for them to integrate with their local PACS," says PACS medical director Erika Denton. 

This integration means that further benefits can be gained from the PACS infrastructure that is already in place around the country. 

Like other users of PACS, breast screening staff are increasingly enjoying the ability to store, view and manipulate images securely, safely and quickly, as well as having access to patients' previous images. In addition, breast screening images can be viewed simultaneously from multiple locations, enabling better and more timely consultations to take place between clinicians, and improved research and teaching.