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 28 February 2019 to Question 223982 on Cervical Cancer: Screening, if he will make it his policy to (a) require CCGs to monitor and report to him on the availability of cervical screening appointments at GP surgeries and (b) request the information necessary to allow him to monitor regularly the rates of attendance for cervical screening appointments.

Public Health England publishes cervical screening coverage by clinical commissioning group (CCG), which shows coverage by practice for the current period and the previous screening interval period of 3.5 years or 5.5 years. The information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cervical-screening-coverage-and-data

NHS England commissioners oversee services so that performance and trends can be monitored locally.

NHS England is accountable to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for how well it performs its responsibilities under the Public Health Functions Agreement including to commission high quality public health services, with efficient use of resources, seeking to achieve positive health outcomes and to promote equality and reduce health inequalities. Quarterly assurance reports, produced jointly by NHS England and Public Health England, include a performance indicator on cervical screening coverage rates.

In addition, a range of national statistics and other data on cervical screening including coverage rates at primary care and CCG levels is published by NHS Digital and is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/cervical-screening-programme

As part of the delivery of the General Practitioner Five Year Forward View, the National Health Service is investing more than £258 million to improve access to general practice. Patients are now benefitting from improved access to all routine appointments (including cervical screening), at evening and/or weekends.

The NHS Cervical Cancer screening programme saves an estimated 5,000 lives a year by detecting abnormalities of the cervix early and referring women for effective treatment.