Statement from the Society of Radiographers re Mammograms

[Mollyollydolly]

The Society of Radiographers have issued the following statement after the news story this week.
Women are already self excluding because of the coverage, women will probably die.
They have fucked up massively.
I have no words for the damage they've done.
I'd really love to know which individual proposed it in the name of diversity and inclusion.
So angry about it.
And to all the women on here who were posting they didn't care who did it, this is the result. Women self excluding.

"Recent media coverage about the role of men in mammography has caused concern for people and we want to provide reassurance and set the record straight.
The coverage followed a motion passed at the Society of Radiographers’ Annual Delegates Conference (ADC). ADC provides members with the opportunity to help shape the strategic direction of the Society. Each region and country propose motions for debate, which are voted on by delegates at the conference.
The motion in question asked the Society to explore how we could support fair access to mammography as a career, as mammography in breast screening is currently restricted to female staff.
It does not change NHS policy, and it does not mean that only male mammographers will be employed.
We understand that this coverage has led to distress and confusion, with some contacting screening services or cancelling appointments, concerned that they will be having a man perform their mammogram. We are deeply sorry for the concern this has caused and are working to provide clear and accurate information.
No changes have been made to who carries out breast screening by this motion. The breast screening experience remains:

• A specialist called a mammographer will take breast screening mammograms.
• The mammographer will be female.
• They will explain what will happen at each stage, and you can ask any questions you may have.
• Radiographers and mammographers in NHS services continue to ensure that patient care is delivered safely, sensitively, and with respect for personal, cultural, and religious needs.

Breast screening is a vital part of early cancer detection and saves lives every year. We recognise how important it is that women feel safe, respected and informed when accessing these services. Protecting trust in the screening programme is essential, and we are working with our NHS colleagues to support this. The motion passed at ADC will now go to the Society’s UK Council to decide whether any further work should be done. If it is taken forward, this will involve detailed discussions with NHS bodies, patient groups and service providers. While the Society can advocate for change on behalf of members, it does not have the authority to change NHS policy. Our intention is to support a professional, inclusive workforce while always protecting the rights and dignity of patients. Mammography screening services will continue to prioritise compassionate, people-centred care. Further updates will be shared when appropriate." https://www.sor.org/news/mammography/public-statement-mammography

Do we need the choice? Are there women who dont go to screening because its performed by women?

When all of the HCP are women, we dont need to worry about freeing anyone up for those who want female care. Its a more efficient service.

Why do you want the choice to pick a man to carryout your screening?

Pricing a man in the role

Why would the NHS not be able to hire women into staff a day shift service which is by appointment but would get a man?

Do you expect that 100% - 50% - 25% of the women on a given day would accept an appointment if they knew it would be a man rather than a woman?

If you think its less than 100% how is the service going to manage having a man?

Will he have his own special letter?

If you accept do you for future appointments get put on a special list which is managed indepenedent of the general list?

How will the service manage the women who dont reply to the invite
• send a new invite for him or
• send an invite for a woman led team?

How will they make sure that the women who turn up on the day know its a man and at what stage should that happen?

I am sorry you had this diagnosis. I presume the initial screening was done by a woman.

Once again for those who haven’t RTFT

There is no suggestion that it is not possible to recruit enough women, the suggestion is that it is unfair to prevent men accessing these roles

Recruiting men won’t increase the number of screenings done, there is no suggestion that there will be extra resources; just that some of the training and some of the roles would go to men instead of women.

Most women prefer female only, some women have to have female only, some women genuinely don’t care - and while that is a valid view, it isn’t valid to imply that therefore nobody else should care either

Once its allowed to be a mix sex profession, it cannot be made into a mainly women one. Either naturally or because of equal opportunity initiatives.

The nhs cannot limit it to only one man in a team. Therefore if it turns out that 90% of women do want a women radiographer, and only 10% arent bothered, they have created an admin problem.

Add the increased administration costs of managing service-users who will or won’t accept a male mammographers, and the issues of a male mammographers not being able to cover for colleagues.

And already the messaging against women is there: the basic principle that women need to accept their wishes and needs have limits and be reasonable (and accept men), that they need to be 'educated' out of their privacy and dignity (to benefit men).

The result being that women are thoroughly educated and the ones who can cope with mixed sex will go on having services, the ones who can't will either suffer during the service or just not turn up. Women become a two tier class, where those who accept men can have things that those who need women only cannot.

Who gains anything? Not women in need of the service.

More than that the NHS is a 'equal' employer [either sex can do any job so 50/50 split aim is proof of equality] so they now have a PR problem 100% women only and now hiring men

With 2 equal hires 1 woman 1 man do they keep the 100% or aim for 50/50.

They have to be seen to be equal so managers will opt for the man as they are a "minority group".

The "10%" are not demanding men in the service just ok if it happens.

And to justify the 50/50 objective the managers start running capacity and womens choice data collection to justify why the "90%" of women are not as important as the internal reporting metric and keeping the Union "happy".

@KnottyAuty I don't think there's any data, as I have said.

But we're now looking at the possibility that males are already employed as they have self ID into the role.

I found some sort of editorial on the subject here Is it still a genuine occupational requirement to have a female only mammographic workforce in breast screening? - Radiography

It did say that there is 'an unpublished study'. Was it not published because it didn't give the activists the answer they wanted? Can you tell? Can you find it somewhere?

The articles also says: Additionally, the Society of Radiographers underscores that radiographers and sonographers perform obstetric, gynaecological, and urological examinations regardless of gender, rendering the exclusion of male radiographers from breast screening units nonsensical.

So I think we can see where the SOR stands here. The SOR is not for women.

I'll dm you

I think I found Jack. And Jack's alright.

And seems to not care if any other female might be uncomfortable in the same situations.

So much lack of empathy whilst being kind to the men who need a career. Pff.

A lot of posts about this on the SoR page - seems the majority’s in favour of the service remaining as it is. A few posts calling out the SoR for deleting previous posts against the motion.

Where are you seeing these posts?

If you go to Facebook and search for the Society and College of Radiographers it comes up under All, it's the top one - there are 209 comments.

And the male mammographer will being paid for doing nothing a lot of the time, lovely for him, and when he is actively employed he'll probably be worse at his job because he doesn't do it so often.

If zero patients will accept a male mammographer (and I bet it's close to this if they bothered asking what patients would actually prefer) then what's the point of training or employing them? Plenty of other career paths available to men.

I mean it would be really 'inclusive' to employ minority demographics who actually aren't qualified. If it's mostly about 'inclusion' rather than patient care, why not do that?

This is really the crux of the issue from a PP the screening services role is to increase screening rates, not increase mens career opportunities.

The NHS seems to be run by people thinking its entire purpose is about validating their identity, career, personal ambitions (even if those ambitions are overriding women's consent) and /or the Union's power. Not about patients.

That's the big problem here.

Hear, hear.

See also universities and politicians.

Its why we are seeing lots of public services, councils,the nhs, universities fail more generally. They are doing the job they want to do, and losing focus of job the are supposed to do.

If they focused on making the screening services as appealing to their target audience as possible, career development would occur for HCP, just not for men. And if they stepped back and looked at the whole radiography profession, they would realise its just one path in a multitude of career developments mostly open to men.

By some woman agreeing to a man, they inadvertently put pressure on other women.
And that's not good for women.

And have you had a mammogram?

Back to the time old question: what harm does it do a man to encounter a firm 'no'?

There are many, many career options for men in health care and medicine. They will survive being excluded from that one, and you'd think they'd care more about their patients' best interests if they were remotely worth the post in the first place.

And yes, self serving is the root of all of this, plus political capture by a movement that took open advantage of a lazy, bored establishment with very few values held in practice as opposed to on paper.

This has got me wondering. This is about breast screening and the possibility trans women have been employed in mammogram clinics. What has been happening in smear clinics? Is the friendly practice nurse a trans female?

@Spittykityy we know that’s happened in at least one.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3125889-Woman-requests-a-female-nurse-She-gets-a-transwoman-instead

Archive version of 2017 Times article referenced in thread here for quick access:
https://archive.is/9P5O9

So bad looking at the date of this. These activists were clearly never keen to “live quietly”. This is a hostile act by the trans person. A polite individual not seeking problems would recuse themselves. They wouldn’t actively seek this out. We need to get FOIs into all the NHS trusts to find out how many male mammographers there are…

Well wouldn’t you know - the College has deleted that thread on their Facebook page. It obviously didn’t go tge way they wanted it to 😡