The impact of COVID-19 on national screening programmes in England

This study aimed to review the trends in adult national screening programme performance in England before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and consider the future implications.

This was a quantitative, longitudinal study.

Publicly available data on quarterly uptake of the five adult screening programmes in England were obtained from Public Health England. Trends from 2017 to 2021 were reviewed and discussed.

From 2019 to 2020 Q4, there were substantial reductions in performance in four of the five national screening programmes that were not in keeping with recent trends.

The reductions in screening performance coincide with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and may be explained by the temporary suspension of national screening programmes, and the inability or unwillingness of invitees to partake in screening once the programmes had been restored. Because of the delay in publication of the analysed data, further COVID-19 lockdowns in recent months make it probable that the current true screening performance figures are substantially lower than those presented in this article. The impact on screening programme performance is likely to be detrimental to patient outcomes, meaning remedial action is urgently required.