Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of using digital cytology for cervical cancer screening programmes on (a) capacity and (b) resource flexibility.

The merits of digital cytology cannot be assessed at this time as the technology is in initial development and not yet ready for commercial use. Once fully developed, NHS England and NHS Improvement will validate whether the technology is suitable for cervical screening samples.