Employers should give workers time off to attend potentially lifesaving cancer screening, the outgoing head of the NHS has said.
Amanda Pritchard, who ends her tenure as NHS England chief executive on Monday, said that companies need to do “all they can” to help people attend cancer checks.
The NHS offers a number of cancer screening programmes, including checks for breast, bowel and cervical cancers.
While bowel cancer screening is done at home, women currently need to attend breast and cervical cancer checks in-person.Millions of women have missed the potentially lifesaving checks in recent years.
Now the health service is urging employers to help encourage workers to attend to reduce barriers to attending.
Ms Pritchard, told PA news agency: “We have seen real progress in the last few years in transforming access to cancer screening, from expanding out-of-hours clinics, to taking vans out into the community and enabling people to access services at the touch of a button.
“Screening doesn’t take long but lives are saved when cancers are caught early.
“It’s really encouraging to see early diagnosis in England now reach its highest ever level, but with over 130,000 people still losing their lives to cancer every year, we cannot take our foot of the pedal.”
2,700 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in England each year
— NHS England Transformation (@NHSDigital) March 8, 2025
It’s important to attend your cervical screening when invited, you may be able to book your cervical screening appointment using the NHS App
Find out more about cervical cancer in the NHS App's Health A to Z#IWD pic.twitter.com/rranqhad83
She added: “Collectively we need to do everything we can to break down the barriers and help millions more people to make cancer screening a regular part of their lives – and our companies and business leaders have a key role to play in this.
“Simple steps really can help to save lives, like ensuring staff know they can start slightly later or take an hour off during the working day to attend their screening appointment.”
Ms Pritchard said that the NHS is “leading the way” and “setting an example as an employer”.
The service is one of the biggest employers in the world and has around 1.5 million workers in England alone.
“As we continue our drive to make cancer screening more convenient, I’m delighted the NHS has started to lead the way in this and set an example as an employer,” she said.
“This year we’ve seen new initiatives, for example at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust to offer hundreds of staff cervical screening on-site, to help them make the most of screening as part of their working day.
“These are schemes set up by staff, for staff.
“I very much hope we can develop and share best practice to offer this further throughout the NHS and it is vital that businesses now look at what they can do to support their employees to prioritise screening – it could save their lives.”
The latest data from NHS England shows around two million women are not up to date on their mammograms, with over five million not up to date with their cervical screening in England.
On Friday the health service announced that at-home cervical screening kits could potentially be rolled out in England from next year to help meet the goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040.
The service has also rolled out a “ping and book” service to alert the phones of women to remind them they are due or overdue an appointment, including through the NHS app.
Cervical screening checks the health of the cervix and is offered to women aged 25 to 64.
And women are invited for breast screening every three years between the ages of 50 and 71.
Coverage rates for cancer screening which required an in-person appointment tumbled during the Covid-19 crisis and have failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Before the pandemic around three-quarters of eligible women in England took up the offer of breast screening, which detects early signs of breast cancer.
During the pandemic the figures dipped to 64% and now stands at 70%.
Just 66% of eligible women aged 25-49 took up their cervical screening offer in 2024.
Some 74% of women aged 50 to 64 took up the offer.
People aged 50 to 74 can conduct bowel cancer screening at home every two years, with around 72% of eligible people taking part.
