Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with the Devolved Administrations to help ensure that the UK fulfils the World Health Organisation’s elimination ambition for cervical cancer.

In England, we are increasing the uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target of 90% through dedicated immunisation teams in schools where a 100% offer is made to all school aged children eligible for these vaccinations. Community clinics are offering vaccines for those children not in mainstream education, and General Practices (GP) now also offer free HPV vaccination for anyone who missed it as part of the school aged offer. Annually, HPV vaccines are promoted to university students as they start the Autumn term, and NHS England are planning a further HPV awareness campaign in 2023.

The National Health Service Cervical Cancer Screening Programme already aligns with the WHO’s target of 70% of women screened using a high-performance test by 35 and 45 years of age. Work is ongoing to improve this beyond the WHO target, through exploration into screening self-sampling via the YouScreen research.