Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who will be responsible for (a) identifying and (b) addressing (i) risks and (ii) safety failures in national screening programmes after the abolition of NHS England.

National Health Service screening programmes save approximately 10,000 lives every year, and enable many other people to make better informed decisions around their health.

Work is progressing at pace to map functions, appraise options, and inform decision making on where NHS England’s current functions will best sit in the future. There are important choices to be made, and ministers and senior departmental officials are working with the new executive team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to lead the formation of a new joint centre.