Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of Capita's ability to deliver the contract to launch new systems for (a) cervical screening and (b) GP payments and pensions from July 2018.

NHS England has commissioned Capita to deliver a transformation programme to improve delivery of primary care support services; including the development of new IT systems for cervical screening call-recall, and general practitioner payments and pensions. NHS England’s assessment is that Capita is making steady progress on the development of these systems for introduction in 2018. NHS England will be ensuring that all transformation activity is planned and delivered with minimal disruption to service delivery and is developed with significant input from service users.

For the changes planned to cervical screening call and recall, Public Health England is actively involved in assessing the design of the new system and ensuring it supports the overall direction of the service to HPV as the primary test.