Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients in England are overdue for their cervical cancer screening appointments.

While we do not hold waiting lists for National Health Service screening programmes, NHS England and NHS Improvement are confident that no one eligible for cervical screening has missed an invitation for an appointment. Invitation and reminder letters for the NHS cervical screening programme in England continued to be issued throughout the pandemic. The intervals at which invitation and reminder letters were issued for the programme was extended on 9 April 2020. This meant that some have received an invitation later than expected. This was a temporary measure put in place to support cervical screening providers as they faced reduced capacity. From June 2020, the normal invitation and reminder parameter was restored with normal service resumed by October 2020.