Male health workers should be allowed to perform breast screening examinations to help tackle workforce shortages, experts have said in a call that has already attracted political backlash.
Mammography is only the health examination exclusively carried out by female staff, the Society of Radiographers (SoR) said.
Every three years, women aged 50 to 71 are invited for breast screening, also known as a mammogram.
These scans look for cancers that are too small to see or feel.
The SoR has now called for a change in policy amid “critical” staff shortages among mammographers – radiographers who specialise in breast imaging.
SoR officials also said male health workers could excel in the field but are being denied the chance because of their gender.
At the SoR annual delegates’ conference in London, a motion will be presented which states: “The role of a mammographer is to have technical expertise operating imaging equipment, proficiency in understanding anatomy, while maintaining patient comfort and analysing the images produced – skills learnt through education and experience.
“These are not inherently gendered attributes, specific or biased to one gender.”
It adds that men “might excel in this” and “offer a different perspective or approach to patient care”.
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she would not want a man performing the “intimate” examination.
“I’ve had a mammogram, it is a very, very intrusive process,” she told Times Radio.
“It involves the clinician holding both of your breasts for a long period of time, feeling them, manipulating them, putting them in the machine.
“I would not want a man doing that – (I) definitely would want a woman.”
The SoR said vacancy rates among screening mammographers is 17.5 per cent.
The vacancy rate among symptomatic mammographers – who assess women who have found a lump in their breast or have a family history of breast cancer – is almost 20 per cent.
“Allowing men to work in mammography would help to reduce shortages – and therefore to reduce waiting lists,” said Charlotte Beardmore, executive director of professional policy at the SoR.
“That, in turn, would ensure that every patient is given the treatment they need, when they need it.”
Ms Badenoch said the solution was “to get more radiographers, not to ask women, yet again, to sacrifice their privacy and dignity to deal with a supply issue.”
Meanwhile, delegates at the conference were also told transgender men should be included in the NHS breast screening programme.
Patients who are registered with their GP as male are not invited for routine screening, though their GP can refer them for screening if cancer is suspected.
