Release of the manuals of the European quality assurance scheme

For the launch of the new Knowledge Centre on Cancer, the JRC is releasing the Manuals of the European quality assurance (QA) scheme:

• The Scheme Owner Manual sets out how the QA scheme is organised, managed and maintained and how the certification process is carried out.
• The Manual for Breast Cancer Services lists and describes all the requirements of the QA scheme.

Today we also publish the last recommendations from the European guidelines on breast cancer screening and diagnosis, on how to inform women about the benefits and harms of breast cancer screening. This final release includes good practice statements on the training of healthcare professionals and the timing for informing women about their mammography screening result.

This marks the end of the development phase of ECIBC, and the beginning of the second phase with the testing in real settings to ensure its applicability before rolling out for implementation in Member States. Both the European guidelines and the QA scheme are designed to be implemented on a voluntary basis.