Women will be sent invitations for cancer screening via the NHS App as part of a new “ping and book” service, Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England has announced.
A service to alert women through the app that they are due or overdue an appointment will be rolled out from December 2024, with new functionality being developed to book screenings via the app in 2025.
Each year in the UK, around 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 3,300 are diagnosed with cervical cancer. NHS cancer screening programmes can help to diagnose cancer or risk of cancer earlier and improve the likelihood of successful treatment.
However, annual data from 2022/2023 shows that 35.4% of women did not take up the offer of breast screening following an invitation, with 2.18 million eligible women not having had a mammogram in the last three years.
Speaking at the NHS Providers’ conference in Liverpool on 11 November 2024, Pritchard said: “We are really excited by the potential of technology to revolutionise access to cancer screening for women and help ensure everyone eligible can make the most of these life-saving services at the touch of a button.
“Next month we’re starting the rollout of a new ‘ping and book’ approach for breast and cervical checks through the NHS App, which will replace costs of letters and text messages with pop-ups on your phone and help make it as convenient as possible to book appointments.”
Breast screening invitations will be sent via the NHS App beginning to scale from December and will be expanded to cervical screening in spring 2025.
From early 2026, eligible women will be able to book breast screening appointments through the app.
Women will receive a notification through the app to remind them to book an appointment, followed by an email or text message and then a letter through the post if neither of the first two reminders have been responded to.
The measure is intended to help save the NHS more than £130m over the next five years, while helping improve uptake of screening.
NHS cancer screening programmes currently send over 25 million invitations, reminders and results letters to patients by post, costing £14.7m every year.
Wes Streeting, health secretary, said: “I hugely welcome plans to make it easier for millions of women to book a screening by harnessing the power of the NHS App.
“This is a great example of shifting the NHS from analogue to digital and the benefits of a modern health service, which this government will deliver as part of our 10 year health plan.”
The move follows the announcement in October 2024 of a pilot scheme exploring whether 111 online could refer women for breast cancer checks.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive at Cancer Research UK, said: “Innovations like this could make it easier for people to access screening, and ultimately, increase the number of cancers caught at an early stage.
“Almost all breast cancer patients and nine in 10 cervical cancer patients in England will survive their disease for five years or more if the disease is caught at the earliest stage.”
