Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to use technology to improve attendance at NHS cancer screenings.

The Department, NHS England and Public Health England (PHE) are committed to increasing the proportion of invites for National Health Service cancer screening appointments that are accepted, through increasing uptake and making appointments more accessible. NHS cancer screening programmes cover breast, bowel and cervical cancer.

PHE’s ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ and ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaigns use social media and online platforms to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and the importance of screening and thereby improve attendance at cancer screening appointments. The ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaign encouraged women to respond to their cervical screening invitation letter, and if they missed their last screening, to book an appointment at their general practitioner practice. The campaign also provided practical information about how to make the test more comfortable, which could also improve attendance.

In addition to this, Professor Richards’ review of national adult screening programmes, published on 16 October, made a number of recommendations on using technology to improve attendance. These recommendations included rolling-out text reminders nationally that have been successfully piloted at a local level and improving functionality of the screening IT systems to support improvements in uptake and coverage. The Department, NHS England and PHE will carefully consider the recommendations in Professor Richards’ report and publish an implementation plan in due course.