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 the uptake of cervical screening within the recommended time frame.

The Department, Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England continue to work together to understand the reasons for the decline in cervical screening uptake and to support the NHS and local authorities (LAs) to address them. This includes access to timely and useful data for benchmarking; providing evidence on best practice to increase uptake among women who wish to be screened; using governance levers to advise the NHS and LAs; and working in partnership with commissioners, providers and charities. This has been, and continues to be, an ongoing focus to improve the cervical screening service and its uptake among women in the United Kingdom.

In August 2018, PHE published ‘Cervical Screening: ideas for helping to improve access and uptake’; the guidance is available to view at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cervical-screening-coverage-and-data/cervical-screening-ideas-for-improving-access-and-uptake