Staff shortages cut breast-cancer screening invitations in the Netherlands

Fewer women in the Netherlands were invited for breast-cancer screening last year as staff shortages delayed the invitations, according to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The institute warns that lower screening numbers could mean tumours are found later, and that some women may die who might otherwise have been cured.

Nearly 1.2 million women received an invitation in 2025, more than 6 per cent fewer than the previous year. Patricia Hugen, who leads the screening programmes at RIVM, said the fall was mainly due to delays in sending invitations because of labour shortages.

Almost 820,000 invited women attended, a drop of about 7 per cent year on year. Because attendance fell by roughly the same proportion as invitations, the participation rate changed little: just over two in three invited women attend each year. Participation is consistently lowest among women under 55 and those aged 70 or over, RIVM says.

The number of women screened for cervical cancer also fell slightly, from more than 385,000 to nearly 360,000. RIVM linked this in part to a major data theft at Clinical Diagnostics, a laboratory in Rijswijk that processes cervical smears and self-tests. Hackers stole medical data belonging to hundreds of thousands of women. The incident caused concern among some women eligible for screening, while the two other laboratories took on extra work and fell behind. As a result, the number of first invitations was temporarily halved.