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 increase participation in bowel cancer screening programmes in Harrogate and Knaresborough.

The Harrogate, Leeds, and York Bowel Cancer Screening Programme serves the population of Harrogate and Knaresborough. Data from NHS England shows that uptake for this programme is 75.3% for people aged 60 to 74 years old. While this is higher than the England average of 70.3%, we know that there is more work to be done.

Work is ongoing to both maintain and improve uptake, which includes collaborating with the Humber North Yorkshire Cancer Alliance and general practices, as well as local communities working together. Additional work to support raising awareness of the bowel cancer screening programme includes development of a recent promotional video which was shared with all North Yorkshire practices to enable them to play on displays in surgery waiting rooms, and with the local authority for use on their social media platforms. Other promotional initiatives have included:

• Go Racing, which is offering all racecourses/corresponding screening centres to send a representative on race days to chat to race goers/videos on big screen/feature in race card;
• five facts toilet campaign posters;
• recorded jingle/promotion at Harrogate radio; and
• attendance at cattle markets to raise awareness.