Breast care

About this service

At the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Breast Unit, we provide comprehensive breast care to more than 12,000 patients each year.

Our unit is the largest in the south west, and one of the few units in the country offering Oncoplastic surgery. We strive to deliver the highest standard of care to all of our patients and remain at the forefront of diagnosis, treatment, research and training in breast disease. To achieve this we actively support and encourage patients to participate in nationally and internationally run trials so that we can explore new frontiers in preventing, diagnosing and treating breast cancer.

The Mermaid Centre

All breast clinic and diagnostic work is carried out at The Mermaid Centre, a purpose-built diagnostic facility at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

The Mermaid is home to the Cornwall Breast Screening Programme (NHS BSP) and the Oncoplastic Breast Unit. We also monitor patients with a family history that maybe at higher risk of developing breast cancer.

If you would like to make a donation to the Mermaid Centre Appeal, please visit the donation page below:

Breast Surgery at St Michael’s Hospital

Almost all breast surgery is performed at St. Michael’s Hospital in Hayle, which is home to the specialist Oncoplastic Breast Unit, and the regional specialist orthopaedic centre. Depending on bed pressures, you will be in St Michael’s or St Joseph’s wards; please read your appointment letter carefully before attending so that you know where to go.

Psychology

We work with this service to help people deal with the health challenges they face by providing psychological assessment, guidance and intervention. We work alongside patients and their care teams to help reduce suffering, increase resilience and improve physical and mental health.

This includes:

  • helping to make treatment, surgery or rehabilitation more effective
  • helping patients adjust to, manage or recover from illness, injury or disability
  • helping patients, and their care teams, make decisions about their health.

Contact information

Where to find us

The Mermaid Centre

The Mermaid Centre is located at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

Directions from the Trelawny main entrance

Enter Trelawny entrance, take any lift or staircase to the ground floor and you’ll find yourself in the link corridor. Turn left and walk until you come to Lloyd’s pharmacy. After the pharmacy turn left outside and walk towards the green plastic corridor. Walk through the green corridor until you come to a door going outside. Walk, either using the steps or slope, and past the picnic tables. The Mermaid Centre is the one-storey building on the left.

Directions from the Tower block entrance

If you’re coming from Tower entrance by the eye hospital entrance, walk in turn left and left again and walk up the light corridor at the end. Turn left and walk up the Link Corridor until just before you reach Lloyd’s pharmacy. Turn right outside and walk towards the green plastic corridor. Walk through the green corridor until you come to a door going outside. Walk, either using the steps or slope, and past the picnic tables. The Mermaid Centre is the one-storey building on the left.

Breast Surgery at St Michael’s Hospital

Walking into to building using the main entrance, you have a café on your right and the reception on your left. Book in and you will be advised when to go up to the ward. Walk past the reception and turn right through the outpatients waiting room, turn left through the doors. Lift is on the right, stairs on the left. St Joseph’s ward is on the first floor, and St Michaels ward is on the second floor.

When you get to the relevant ward entrance there is a doorbell to ring, and someone will open the door a guide you down the corridor to the ward clerk desk. You will then be shown to your bed space and the bathroom.

Information about breast screening (mammography)

Around one in seven women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime.

If you are invited for breast screening or a mammogram, you may come to the Mermaid Centre, our dedicated building for Mammography (see above for more details). We also have two mobile vans for breast screening that visit the following towns:

  • Redruth
  • Newquay
  • Truro
  • St Austell
  • Wadebridge
  • Falmouth
  • Hayle
  • St Ives
  • Helston
  • Camelford
  • Penzance

3D walkthrough of the mobile breast screening unit

You can find out more about breast screening and mammography on the NHS website or in the below expanding sections.

The following content is supplied by the NHS website nhs.uk

Page last reviewed: 7 November 2023

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