3787 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health

3787 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health: What progress has been made in the last quarter (October to December 2023) to ‘Enable equitable participation for existing national cancer screening programmes through targeted investment for priority populations’ under Outcome 4: New Zealanders have better cancer survival, supportive care and end-of-life care, as part of the New Zealand Cancer Action Plan 2019 – 2029?

Hon Dr Shane Reti: I am advised that the following progress has been made in the October to December 2023 quarter to 'enable equitable participation for existing national cancer screening programmes through targeted investment for priority populations': • The National Bowel Screening Programme has added to its IT system a new function known as Community Invitation Campaign Strategy (CICS), which enables participants to be invited to a range of face-to-face events where bowel screening kits are handed out. This new IT functionality enables campaigns to be designed with local communities to meet their needs. • An investment case was approved in response to the 26 recommendations of the 2022 Quality Improvement Review of Clinical Quality and Safety of BreastScreen Aotearoa. The discovery phase was also completed for the Waikato region co-design project -- one of the initiatives in response to the 26 recommendations. • The National Cervical Screening Programme made cervical screening and follow-up testing for priority groups, free of charge.