What the Breast Care Centre Offers
The Primrose Breast Care Centre is a state of art centre providing exemplary care and support for all. The Centre marked a change to previous practice when it opened. Now whether you have a lump, bump, pain or discomfort, you will be seen, examined, have a mammogram, ultrasound and or biopsy (depending on your need) – all in one appointment, which cuts down the delay to diagnosis as much as possible.
Patients to The Primrose Breast Care Centre are generally referred by their GP when they have symptoms. On arrival you will see a Consultant who will offer you an initial consultation, which may be followed by an examination. Very often this is all that is needed. You will be asked to explain your symptoms to help the Consultant assess your needs. The Consultant Surgeon will then decide if you need any imaging or tests (for example a biopsy). A Mammogram and or ultrasound may be performed at the time of your clinic appointment.
Patients are often invited for breast screening at the centre because they have reached screening age. Patients who have screening mammograms usually get sent a normal result. For some, most of whom have nothing wrong, further tests may be needed to be sure of something that was picked up in your first mammogram. These clinics operate out of the centre too. On arrival you are seen by a Nurse, then given another mammogram or ultrasound scan, possibly a biopsy too to help work out what is happening.
That’s not all the centre offers of course: it is also a hub for the NHS West Devon and East Cornwall breast screening service, which offers screening to patients who have previously been treated for breast cancer and those that have a family history of Breast cancer. The NHS West Devon and East Cornwall breast screening service invites almost 25,000 individuals a year from the areas of Plymouth, Saltash, Looe, Torpoint, Callington, Bude, Launceston, Tavistock, Kingsbridge, Salcombe & Ivybridge (depending on your GP’s referral areas).
The centre also has an in-house team of Specialist Breast Care Nurses, helping people through all the breast cancer processes and treatments, they can be contacted at any stage to reassure, support, and give advice.
The Primrose Breast Centre houses a multi-disciplinary team, which includes Specialist Breast and reconstruction Nurses, Plastic Surgeons, Breast Surgeons, Radiologists, and many other professionals that all work together as a team to offer the best care possible for patients.
In recent years the centre has been joined by The Oncoplastic Surgery team which provides complex reconstructive breast surgery for patients as well as the careful planning, assessment and delivery of any patient's care needs.
Working hard behind the scenes you will find a large Administration team who book and reschedule your appointments, send your results, and make your appointment run as smoothly as possible. The Administration team are also often your first port of call when speaking to someone in the Primrose Centre and are the ones that try their very best to add comfort at a difficult time.
Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of people in the waiting room, some of them come and go while you wait, there are lots of different thing’s happenings within the centre every day.
We understand that being referred to the breast centre can be very stressful, but please be assured that the team’s priority is to make you feel as much at ease as possible and make things that little bit easier.