Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to improve breast screening uptake in (a) South East and (b) England.

Cancer Alliances work very closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England (PHE) and local systems to understand the numbers attending screening, particularly where there is low attendance, for example, in the South East, and to take action to increase uptake. These actions include health promotion messaging for primary care to encourage women who are eligible to attend their screening appointment and, most recently, the promotion of COVID-secure pathways that have been developed to reassure women that appointments are still safe to attend.

Nationally, breast screening providers have been encouraged to use methods such as text messaging to remind women about their breast screening invitation and encourage them to attend. NHS England and NHS Improvement and PHE have been working with Cancer Alliances on the ‘Help us Help you’ campaign and will be running a more targeted campaign in January 2021 to address some of the barriers to screening uptake.