Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the uptake of breast cancer screening in (a) London and (b) the North East London Health and Care Partnership.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Uptake of breast screening declined during the pandemic but is now increasing although London uptake levels remains below England levels. The national acceptable level for coverage in the NHS Breast Screening Programme is 70%.

The following table shows the 2022/23 coverage by local authority in the North East London Health and Care Partnership, with an average coverage of 50.8%:

Source: Breast screening annual statistics, NHS England

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times have neonatal units in the North East London Health & Care Partnership reached capacity since 1 May 2022.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not hold this data centrally. NHS England is investing £45 million to increase neonatal cot capacity. This investment has started to improve cot capacity in London, and will continue to do so by March 2025.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October to Question 8348 on Driving Tests: Greater London, what the average waiting time was at a driving test centre in the wider London area in (a) 2019 and (b) 2015.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The table below shows the average waiting time for driving test centres in the wider London area, located within the M25, in the financial years (a) 2019/20 and (b) 2015/16.

1. No 2015/16 data exists for Bromley DTC as it opened as a new DTC in December 2019.
2. Data for Bromley DTC covers the period December 2019 – March 2020.
3. No 2015/16 data exists for Tottenham DTC as it opened as a new DTC in November 2016.
4. No 2015/16 data exists for Yeading DTC. DVSA did not regularly make car practical driving tests available from this location until the 2020/21 financial year to help it recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.