Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the reasons for which the NHS missed its target of 70% of invited women to be screened for breast cancer in 2022-23.

The Department is committed to improving uptake in the NHS Breast Screening Programme. NHS England has commissioned evaluative projects to look at ways to improve uptake, and to understand why women may not attend breast screening. These include: actively following up with women who have missed an appointment or not engaged with the service; looking at the reasons why women do not attend screenings, to address any barriers; and assessing the impact on screening uptake using different invitation methodologies with reference to factors such as age, previous screening history, including attendance at first invitation and subsequent invites, and deprivation. These projects are expected to report by April 2024.