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 ensure and monitor that women have full information about the screening available in the public and private sectors and the conditions being screened for, before they embark on the screening pathway.

When inviting women to participate in young person and adult screening, National Health Service screening programmes send a letter of invitation with information about why screening is being offered and the benefits and risks of the offer, to enable individuals to make a personal informed choice.

In the antenatal period, general practitioners (GPs) provide expectant mothers with the ‘Screening for you and your baby’ booklet, which explains the screening tests offered during and after pregnancy and the GP will discuss each screening offer at subsequent appointments. This booklet is available to view at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/screening-tests-for-you-and-your-baby-description-in-brief

It is important that women who wish to participate in screening engage in screening programmes that are recommended by the United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC), allowing women to make personal informed choices at each step of the screening pathway. The UK NSC helps provide women who wish to engage in private screening with information and has written a blog to help individuals think about the outcomes before engaging in private screening. The blog is available to view at the following link:

https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/03/02/a-reminder-about-private-screening-and-a-last-opportunity-to-order-leaflets-about-it/