If you are a man reading this – read it and then give it to your mother, wife, partner or daughter to read. If you are a woman or girl – read it yourself. My message is simple: ethnic minority women are less likely to go for breast cancer screening than other women (and not enough other women do anyway!) – so please don’t risk your own life by not going for screening yourself.

I was lobbied at Parliament by the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, who are trying to raise the awareness of women in those groups whose take up of screening is too low. There are two groups that in particular do not take advantage of the screening programs now available throughout the country – one as I say is women from ethnic minorities and the other is women over 70 of all ethnic groups. So I promised Breakthrough Breast Cancer that as an MP, I would take some action to try and alert women to the need for self-examination and screening.

Whatever the reason for the low take up – I hope that by writing this article I will be able to persuade more women to get screened. Whether it is modesty or shyness, lack of information or barriers in accessing health services that causes low take up rates, people should remember – the screening process saves lives.

Early detection is estimated to save 1,400 lives per year. One in nine women will develop breast cancer at some time in their lives and nearly 13,000 women die each year from this disease. Not only does early detection save lives but it can also prevent mastectomies – having to have a whole breast removed. Cancers in screened women tend to be smaller and therefore less likely to be treated by removal of the whole breast.

Breast Cancer Care carried out some research in 2004 – ‘an investigation into breast cancer related knowledge, beliefs and attitudes among women from minority ethnic groups living in London and Sheffield’. Asian and Arab women identified a number of barriers to accessing information about breast cancer. Many of the women appear to put themselves last – i.e. their priorities are their role in looking after children, the house and the cooking way ahead of their own health care. They identified, particularly amongst older women, a lack of literacy amongst the most disadvantaged – and this, combined with views that the materials were hard to read or understand, meant the information was just not getting through. Another barrier was that these women found it difficult to access primary care and almost none of them accessed information about breast cancer from newspapers or magazines.

So – that is why I began this column by asking whoever reads it to make sure that they or women they know understand how important it is to get themselves screened. There were some very good suggestions in the document about how more information could be disseminated. The Asian and Arab women in the study suggested that education outreach should be organised in places where they met – at places of worship or in their own community centres. They felt that the UK based Asian and Arab TV and radio stations could also play their part in getting the information out there. Of course, their local GPs need to play their part too.

And of course – word of mouth. Women talk – and they need to be talking about screening.

So – please don’t let lack of information, cultural modesty or putting everyone else ahead of yourself stop you getting screened. If you are the fulcrum of your family’s life and if it is on you that everyone depends to keep home and hearth – then there is an even greater imperative that you take the best possible care of yourself.