Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 24 January (HL1800), why the improvement plan for the NHS breast screening programme is not set to be published.

NHS England has developed an internal national plan in collaboration with key stakeholders to improve uptake within the breast screening programme from 2023 and beyond. This plan will encompass a series of evaluative projects which are expected to report by April 2024

There is currently no intention of publishing the internal plan, but it is available on the NHS Futures Platform. This is a collaboration platform that empowers everyone working in health and social care to safely connect, share and learn across boundaries.

NHS England and the Department are working in collaboration to establish a set of improvement objectives. Rather than a timescale for reaching the target of 80%, each region has a local improvement plan and are working to reach the agreed efficiency standard following restoration of services post COVID-19 pandemic. It was agreed that a quantified focus on reducing variation was preferable to setting timescales.