Screening

NHS Screening Programmes can save lives and reduce ill health by finding out if people have a higher chance of having a health problem, so that early treatment can be offered, or information given to help them make informed decisions. By supporting the government’s shift from treatment to prevention, these programmes mitigate the demand for resource-intensive procedures and reduce strain on other NHS services.

Work is underway to improve services across breast, bowel, cervical and diabetic eye screening (DES) programmes, whilst supporting new programmes such as lung cancer screening.

Background

Our vision is that in the next 5 years, a third of interactions with the NHS will be delivered using the NHS App and other digital tools. These tools can support people to take control of their health, while also freeing up more time for healthcare staff and providing valuable new data and insight.

Aims

New digital products and services will:

• improve the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening and enable them to view and change their appointments through the NHS App. Non-digital alternatives will remain in place for those who are unable or choose not to use the app
• better support and manage participants through the screening process, making the most of data to reduce the need to collect information multiple times, and supporting the tracking of participants’ progress more effectively, freeing up time for staff
• provide better data on the performance of screening services, allowing providers and commissioners to better target their work to continually improve screening

Our ambition is to provide earlier detection and more time for care by:

• driving the shift to home testing through screening at home that is more accessible, more personalised and reaches more people, when it matters most
• transforming clinic-based screening by delivering a new service for breast screening, reaching more of those most at risk, and lightening the load on the workforce
• running reliable, safe and secure live services

Approach

We will initially build and roll out our new digital capabilities on a small scale, allowing us to test our approach to designing and delivering new services that support the clinical journey for staff and participants. This will ensure that the new services can be integrated smoothly with existing systems.

Throughout our transformation, services will be designed in collaboration with users, and insights will be used to continually improve and expand the new services, eventually extending the transformation to cover all screening programmes.

Progress and next steps

In 2026, we are working towards:

• piloting a digital version of the lung cancer risk check for those most at risk of developing lung cancer
• adding self-testing as a new mode for cervical screening participants who have previously not attended clinic-based screening
• piloting a new service for staff working in breast screening, giving them a quicker, easier way to manage the screening process, and freeing them up to spend more time with participants
• nationally rolling out digital alerts for bowel cancer screening, letting people know a FIT kit is on its way and expanding this to all communication types
• transforming services in diabetic eye screening (DES), starting with moving services to NHS-owned platforms such as the National Service Desk (NSD) and Cohorting as a Service (CaaS)

Latest news

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Transforming digital services in breast screening

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