Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of recent changes to NHS smear tests on (a) women's health and (b) uptake of cervical cancer screening.

The UK National Screening Committee’s recommendation to change the cervical screening intervals from three to five years for women aged between 25 and 49 years old was made in 2019. The evidence and consultation responses supporting the recommendation is available at the following link:

https://view-health-screening-recommendations.service.gov.uk/cervical-cancer/

The decision to make the changes was based on what is best for women. The more accurate human papillomavirus (HPV) test requires less frequent screening, and changing the frequency eliminates the unnecessary over-screening of the population.

The IT system supporting the national cervical screening programme was updated in July 2024 and can now enable the changes that were recommended.

A full impact assessment and equality impact assessment were considered before the changes were agreed by the Government. We will publish these shortly.

The Department undertook an impact assessment and an equality impact assessment into the introduction of HPV self-sampling in under-screened populations, which will also be published shortly.

The self-testing kits which detect HPV, which is a group of viruses that can lead to cervical cancer, allow women to carry out this testing in the privacy and convenience of their own homes.

The programme specifically targets those groups consistently missing vital appointments, with younger women, ethnic minority communities facing cultural hurdles, people with a disability, and LGBT+ people all set to benefit.