Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help improve breast cancer screening rates in (a) the UK and (b) Ealing Central and Acton constituency.

Steps being taken to help improve breast cancer screening rates in the United Kingdom include continuation of investment and planning to promote the use of text message alerts to remind women of upcoming appointments, roll out of local and national media campaigns to raise awareness of the breast screening programme as required, development of improved inclusive information for women and delivery of 29 new breast cancer screening units, 58 remote access upgrades and nearly 70 life-saving service upgrades.

Specifically, in North West London (including the London Borough of Ealing), the following initiatives have been implemented to improve breast cancer screening rates: a campaign ran in October 2022 to encourage women to attend their breast screening and reminded them to book an appointment if they had been invited; multilingual breast screening reminder calls were made to non-responders; screening improvement facilitators were commissioned to develop and implement local plans to improve screening uptake and coverage; and posters and leaflets on breast screening were shared in community spaces across North West London.