Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women aged under 25 were invited for cervical screening in (a) 2017, (b) 2018 and (c) 2019.

The NHS Cervical Screening Programme provides all women between the ages of 25 and 64 the opportunity to be screened routinely to detect cervical abnormalities at an early stage, although women may receive their first invite up to six months before their 25^th birthday.

However, women outside of this age group may still be assessed by the programme. Under 25-year olds will be included in the screening record if cervical abnormalities are coincidentally found as part of separate gynaecological assessments.

The number of women invited by the programme is published on an annual basis, and includes breakdowns by age group. The report can be accessed at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/cervical-screening-annual.

The data for under 25-year olds for the years requested is shown in the following table:

Number of women invited, by age-group, in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 (financial years):