Cervical Screening Programme, England - 2020-21 [NS]

Call & recall

In 2020-21:

Coverage for ages 25 to 64 years was 70.2%
 

Cervical screening

In 2020-21:

3.10 million samples were tested.
(all ages)

Colposcopy

In 2020-21:

176,561 individuals were referred for colposcopy
(all ages)

This publication presents information about the NHS Cervical Screening Programme (‘the programme’) in England in the year 2020-21.

Individuals between the ages of 25* and 64 are invited for regular cervical screening under the programme, the intent of which is to detect abnormalities within the cervix that could, if undetected and untreated, develop into cervical cancer.  Individuals outside of this age group may also be assessed by the programme.

The statistics presented cover the following topic areas in the cervical screening programme:

• Call and recall
• Cervical cytology
• Colposcopy

The associated data tables, interactive visualisation, appendices and quality statement are available on the main publication page:

*Invitations are first sent at age 24.5 years.

Report bulletin (this document)

• Presents a detailed summary of the findings from the 2020-21 data collection.
• Further information on the data presented within this report is available in the additional publication resources outlined here.

Interactive dashboard

• The main report is accompanied by an interactive data dashboard. Data are presented in maps and charts. This allows comparison between areas as well as showing changes over time.
• The geographic breakdowns included in the dashboard are upper tier local authority, region and country

Data tables

• Contain all relevant statistics for 2020-21.
• Available in Excel and csv formats.

Appendices

Further detail on topics including:

• Publication context
• Coverage definitions
• Changes to the programme
• Data collection

Quality statement:

• Contextual information to aid understanding and presentation of the data including the methods used to compile the statistics and other background information that users may find useful.
• All resources are available from the publication page

HPV primary screening - implementation

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) primary screening was fully implemented in December 2019. With HPV primary testing, a sample is first tested for HPV and where the test result is positive, a cytology screen is then performed. See appendix J for further details.

This is the first year that all data collected is based on HPV primary screening. Activity may therefore be different to previous years. See Appendix A for full details on HPV primary screening and HPV triage.

HPV primary screening – laboratory changes: In 2020-21 the cervical screening programme carried out  HPV testing and cervical cytology sample testing at 8 cervical screening laboratory sites. Appendix J has a table summarising historic laboratory changes.

Result categories (KC65)

From 2020-21 onwards, the following definitions are true:

• 'Inadequate' represents HPV unavailable and / or cytology inadequate.
• Other: includes 'HPV positive, cytology negative'.

See Appendices for full definitions.

COVID-19 and the production of statistics

Disruption from the coronavirus pandemic had minimal effect on the data collection during 2020-21, most screening services continued to submit data returns and data was available from the call and recall IT system.

Due to COVID-19 measures, attendance for screening was less than usual in the early part of 2020-21. Screening and referral of those individuals considered to be at highest risk of a significant cervical abnormality was prioritised during this period and continued to take place.  From the summer of 2020, the cervical screening programme began restoring and higher than normal levels of screening tests were seen.  All individuals eligible for screening who should have received an invitation in 2020-21 were invited. 
See Appendix F for details of data quality issues and laboratory and clinic changes in 2020-21.

Data should be interpreted with care over the COVID-19 period.