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 ensure that cancer screening is fully accessible to those with socioeconomic disadvantage.

Local NHS services have a duty to ensure that their services are as accessible as possible to their local populations and that any appropriate support is in place. NHS England is working with stakeholders to develop new initiatives to support improvements in coverage and a reduction in health inequalities.

This includes delivering the NHS breast cancer screening uptake improvement plan covering a range of initiatives including a pilot for the proactive follow-up of non-attenders and testing how invitations are sent.

We are also working with NHS England to run an evaluation to test the effectiveness of HPV self-sampling as a primary cervical screening option. The findings from this evaluation will be used to inform a UK National Screening Committee recommendation and it is expected that self-sampling could lead to an increase in uptake as it will reduce some of the barriers that prevent people from attending screening. Such as the availability of appointments, physical disability and past trauma.