Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the whether the cervical screening programme IT system is fit for purpose.

Following the recent cervical screening incident, announced on 15 November 2018, NHS England has set up a multi-agency clinical panel to manage the incident. Capita has put in place daily audits to ensure all women’s files are accounted for and are looking at how automated processes can be used to reduce errors. Additionally, the checks within the Capita call and recall service have been upgraded at every stage of the process and Capita has appointed an independent audit team to carry out a detailed review into operation systems and processes in Primary Care Support England.