Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Review of Adult Screening Programmes in England, published by Sir Mike Richards in October 2019, what plans he has to develop the IT system supporting the cervical screening programme with the functionality recommended in that report.

Professor Sir Mike Richards’ Review on Adult Screening included a recommendation to develop screening IT systems that focus on the functionality needed to support improvements in the uptake and coverage of screening programmes, including the NHS Cervical Screening and Breast Screening Programmes.

NHSX is taking forward a comprehensive Digital Transformation of Screening programme. As part of this, NHSX is developing an interim cervical screening call/recall system, to end the current reliance on National Health Application and Infrastructure Services (NHAIS). A team has been established to deliver the new system and to migrate data from NHAIS and a technical architecture has been approved. A roadmap for the build and implementation of the new system and a plan with an estimated go-live date are being developed.