Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many women in each clinical commissioning group (CCG) in the North West have not had a cervical smear test in the last three years despite receiving letters inviting them to do so; and what actions have been taken by each of those CCGs to reduce that number.

The information requested for uptake of women per clinical commissioning group (CCG) in North West for the last three years is not available. This is because the National Health Service Cervical Screening programme reports on coverage and not on uptake rates, though there are plans in place for this to be introduced in 2018.

The latest 2016 figures on coverage are published by NHS Digital and is provided by CCG level:

http://bit.ly/cervical_screen_coverage_quarterly_CCGdata

Data on the average time that each CCG in the North West took to send letters is not available. NHS England closely monitors the turnaround times for cervical screening against a quality measure which means that 98% of women who are screened should receive their results within two weeks. For the first six months of 2017, six of the eight Lancashire and south Cumbria CCGs were reported as meeting the 98% target.