Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2018 to Question 171297 on Cervical Cancer: Screening, what steps he is taking to increase take-up of cervical screening in the North West.

The Department, Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England continue to work together to understand the reasons for the decline in cervical screening uptake and to support the National Health Service and local authorities (LAs) to address them. This includes access to timely and useful data for benchmarking; providing evidence on best practices to increase uptake among women who wish to be screened; using governance levers to advise the NHS and LAs; and working in partnership with commissioners, providers and charities.

In August 2018, PHE published Cervical Screening: ideas for helping to improve access and uptake; the guidance is available to view at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cervical-screening-coverage-and-data/cervical-screening-ideas-for-improving-access-and-uptake