Cervical Screening Rates

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 12 February 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:55, 12 February 2020

Public Health Wales are already reviewing access to a range of their screening programmes to try to understand the lowest attending groups and to understand what they can do on the way the programme is provided, but are also taking a real interest in the self-screening trials that are being run in north and east London. That will be especially interesting to see if that does make a difference for those people who are invited to take part or who are at least six months overdue. So, there is a range of measures being taken, not just in Wales but across the UK. But in Wales, we have a good story to tell about the effectiveness of our screening programme, and in particular we are still the only UK country to have introduced high-risk HPV testing as a primary screening method. It's a more accurate and more sensitive test that will prevent more cancers. So, we look, and we continue to look, for areas of improvement as opposed to simply doing what we've done in the past.