Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure women from Black and Minority Ethnic groups are not be negatively effected by a change to open invitations to breast screening, instead of a timed appointment.

Breast screening services are focusing on restoring appointments following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Services have a responsibility to reduce health inequalities, and considerations of equality of access have been included in the recovery process.

Local services have been able to choose whether to implement open appointments or maintain fixed timed appointments, as services are restored. This choice reflects the needs of the local breast screening population: the service must evidence that their given approach better supports the recovery of appointments and the reduction of inequalities. For this reason, services in Thames Valley have decided not to implement open invitations as part of wider efforts to encourage equality in screening uptake.