Screening and Immunisation

About screening

Screening is the process of identifying apparently healthy people who may have an increased chance of a disease or condition. The four national NHS cancer screening programmes - Bowel, Breast, Cervical and Lung (from February 2025) - can save lives and improve quality of life through early diagnosis. Screening plays a key role in achieving the NHS’s ambition to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028.

Ensuring regular participation in screening programmes is central to increasing the rate of early diagnosis of cancer.

Surrey and Sussex Cancer Alliance is working with our three Integrated Care System (ICS) partners - Frimley, Surrey Heartlands and NHS Sussex, including primary care networks, screening centres and screening hubs - to encourage screening participation to achieve the national screening targets.

NHS Cervical Cancer Elimination Campaign

NHS England's ambition is to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040. By increasing equitable uptake of both the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, which protects against most forms of the virus, and cervical screening, which checks for high-risk HPV, cervical cancer can be prevented.
The NHS ambition means reaching the following milestones:
By 2030 -

90% of girls fully vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by the age of 15
70% of women screened using a high-performance test (for example, HPV primary screening test) by the age of 35 and, again, by the age of 45
90% of women identified with cervical disease receive treatment (meaning 90% of women with precancer are treatedwhere this is clinically appropriate, and 90% of women with invasive cancer managed)

By 2040 -

cervical cancer incidence rate of below 4 per 100,000 women

The NHS Cervical Cancer Elimination Toolkit includes digital resources that can be used in patient and public settings to increase awareness of the elimination goal, educate the public about HPV and build confidence in the HPV vaccine and cervical screening.

Find the full toolkit here in the national Campaign Resource Centre.

Some of the digital resources have been downloaded here. Simply click on the image to download.