Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps are being taken to address the downward trend in cervical cancer screening uptake.

Jane Ellison

There is a range of work going on to understand the reasons for the decline and to try to address them. This includes:

– Data and information – access to data, cleansing, benchmarking for providers, timely and useful for commissioners;

– behavioural insight – communication with commissioners, providers, patients, public;

– commissioning levers – commissioning contracts in public health (S7a), primary care;

– partnership work – relationships with commissioners and providers; and

– sharing best practice – what works well, evaluation, how to embed quality improvement

Public Health England Screening is also awaiting the outcome from the Strategies to Increase Cervical screening uptake at first invitation (STRATEGIC) trial which looks at various interventions to help assist women to attend screening and increase uptake across all quintiles. The trial was completed in 2015 and researchers are expected to publish findings later this year.