5. What action is the Minister taking to improve cervical screening rates in Wales, please? OAQ55070

Public Health Wales is working to improve cervical screening uptake, particularly in women from the age of 25 to 30, who are the lowest-attending demographic. I'm pleased to say that uptake has increased with over 30,000 more women screened by the programme in Wales in 2018-19 compared to the previous year.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Figures provided by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust show that cervical screening attendance in Wales is just over 73 per cent. This is well below the 80 per cent target set by your Government. However, their research reveals that 63 per cent of women who have physical disabilities have been unable to attend cervical screening. What action are you taking, Minister, to tackle this inequality in cervical screening to ensure that women with disabilities have access to this potentially life-saving test in Wales?

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. 

Last year, 260,247 individuals aged 25 to 64 were invited for screening, whilst 173,547 individuals were actively screened in 2018-19. Minister, a majority of Welsh women were invited from the screening programme to make a screening appointment, and these figures show that the Welsh national health service is progressing in a vital area for women's health. What further actions, though, can be undertaken to further increase this vital screening coverage and to further increase the uptake of screening invitations by Welsh women, which as we know saves lives?

Yes, you're right, that final point is an important one: this screening programme saves lives. We've listened to the evidence about who to target within the programme, and also the reality that cervical cancer is the most common type of cancer in women under the age of 35. So, it's about the Government, about Public Health Wales and the campaign they're running, it's also about campaigns that other groups run. The #LoveYourCervix social marketing campaign that was launched in March aims to encourage uptake and to reduce the embarrassment that can be a barrier to some people undertaking screening, and to remind that a simple test can be the difference between having an early awareness of a challenge or actually the reality that not undertaking screening can cost lives as well.