A YEAR ago the Free Press launched its SOS campaign, Save Our Screening, to save the breast cancer unit at Wycombe Hospital.

It has taken until now for Bucks Health Authority to agree that the women who said the system was good and should not be changed, who signed our petition, and who wrote to us telling us of their experiences of breast cancer, were right.

After the launch on July 21 last year nearly 1,200 people completed the coupon in the Free Press, Midweek and Star and a further 110 wrote protest letters.

The health authority also received 395 letters and petitions totalling 9,031 names from people in Milton Keynes, and a further 47 letters and petitions containing 56 names from Aylesbury Vale residents.

Provided the health authority agrees when it meets later this month, the breast cancer units at Wycombe, Stoke Mandeville and Milton Keynes hospitals will stay open, for local women to receive diagnosis and treatment.

In addition invitations to breast screening will be extended to women aged up to 70. At present the range is 50 to 65.

And the screening will involve two pictures of each breast instead of one.

The only thing women are not getting is screening every two years. The county is having to fit in with the national standard of once every three years.

Bucks Health Authority produced a consultation document more than a year ago.

This said the system had to change because three centres, at Stoke Mandeville, Wycombe and Milton Keynes hospitals, served too small a population to be sure patients were getting a high quality service.

The document said that women over 50 would still be screened at the same mobile centres as before, but if they needed follow up visits because something appeared wrong or they could not get to the mobile unit for reasons of disability, the hospital-based unit might not be at the local hospital.

In addition it proposed that women should be screened once every three years, instead of every two.

Bucks is the only place in the country that screens so frequently, largely because the breast screening service was actually started in the county.

South Bucks Community Health Council contacted about 90 organisations, many of them Women's Institutes, for their views.

They backed three centres and two-yearly screening, said Ailsa Harrison CHC chief officer.

"They were very happy with the services at Wycombe. Some had been there with cancer or with scares and they said it was a good service so why mess it about?" said Miss Harrison.

She added that Wycombe had some very good aspects, which could have disappeared if the centre had closed.

For instance a woman could come for a diagnosis and see a surgeon the same day rather than waiting for another appointment.

She said the CHC was pleased with the decision to extend the age range.

"The risk goes up astronomically as you get older," she said but added: "We are disappointed that screening would be every three years."