Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his plans are for the recovery of breast screening services from the covid-19 outbreak by the end of the 2021-22 financial year.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have advised that National Health Service breast screening providers are working to manage screening invitation and diagnostic backlogs. Amongst a range of initiatives to address recovery, breast screening offices (BSOs) are running extra screening sessions and utilising open invitations to fully optimise available appointments. Some BSOs have already cleared the backlog and others are aiming to do so by the end of 2021/22.