Women can have contact with a clinical nurse specialists before, during and after assessment. Overall for the West Midlands region, contact with a clinical nurse specialists following assessment was slightly lower than anticipated. Similar to contact before assessment, this is initiated by the woman and may be why numbers were low. The differences in clinical nurse specialists contact
throughout the region at each stage of assessment were unexpected and may be due to the individual working practices of the nursing teams. It is possible that the valuable and often scare resource of clinical nurse specialists time was taken up by women with the greatest needs. Contact with a clinical nurse specialists was found to be helpful by the majority of women. This provides evidence that contact with a clinical nurse specialists in a breast screening assessment centre is important to patients. The discussion women have with a clinical nurse specialists can allow them to make sense of what is happening and express key concerns or anxieties.
The results show that several women did not have contact with a clinical nurse specialists for a variety of reasons. These women would have missed out on the advice and care that other women found helpful. Some women stated that they did not want to see a clinical nurse specialists , and this will be explored in future patient satisfaction surveys as the reasons were unclear.