IT is totally incomprehensible that Buckinghamshire Health Authority should be considering closing one, if not two, major breast-screening units.

The units under threat are at Wycombe Hospital, Aylesbury and Milton Keynes. The health authority could leave just one of them operating, which is absolutely astonishing when the UK has one of the world's worst death rates from breast cancer: 28.4 per 100,000 women compared to only 5.8 per 100,000 in Japan.

The authority is also considering reducing scheduled breast screening for women aged between 50 and 64 from every two years to every three.

This is totally unacceptable. The health authority should be widening the availability of the service, not reducing it and - whichever way they want to look at it - the current plans are a reduction in the service.

Women will have to travel further and it will be of great inconvenience to many people who may have to rely on public transport. We pay for and deserve services on our doorstep and for patients to have to travel to Aylesbury or Milton Keynes is ludicrous. For many people in south Bucks it would be easier and cheaper to travel to London.

Changing the checks from every two years to every three is a short-sighted measure.

The authority should be expanding the service, screening more women and reducing the age range, as other countries are doing, not move the goalposts under some or other excuse.

We must not meekly accept this proposal - health is far too important a matter, especially for the thousands of women who fall victim to this killer disease.

Help us make sure the health authority realises just how wrong this proposal is.