46100 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health

46100 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health: What progress, if any, has been made in the quarter January to March 2024 to ‘Improve Māori and Pacific participation in breast, cervical and bowel screening through targeted approaches with Māori and Pacific community providers’ under section 2.3 ‘Mate pukupuku | People with cancer’ within Te Whatu Ora’s Te Pae Tata: Interim New Zealand Health Plan 2022?

Hon Dr Shane Reti: I am advised that during the January to March 2024 quarter, several initiatives were progressed, including: • Implementation of the BreastScreen Aotearoa Clinical Quality and Safety Improvement Review. • Work continued on a co-design pilot in Waikato to identify innovative ways to increase access to both the National Cervical Screening Programme and BreastScreen Aotearoa. • A zero-fees screening programme continued for priority groups who are disproportionately impacted by cervical cancer. • Support to Screening initiatives included the development of a Kaimahi Workforce training programme to support local delivery of HPV primary screening in rural and remote underserved areas. • Work began on a consumer, population identification & registration pilot for cervical screening. It aims to enable cervical screening providers and screening support services to use digital notifications to deliver tailored community cervical screening messages to uplift access and support throughout screening journeys. • Online regional workshops were held to collaborate with cervical screening partners in primary care, PHOs, Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa (formerly Family Planning), screening support services, Hauora Māori partners and Pacific health partners. Topics included funding models for HPV primary screening; National Cervical Screening Programme information systems (including Patient Management System integrations and access to the National Cervical Screening Programme’s Register data) and ways to strengthen whānau-centred ways of working. • A community invitation campaign is being rolled out to provide greater flexibility in the way priority populations are invited to take part in bowel screening in different districts, and to pre-plan education within their communities. • A pilot for people to return their completed bowel screening test kit directly to a community laboratory rather than by mail was undertaken in the Waitematā, Counties Manukau, and Auckland Te Toka Tumai districts. • A small-scale trial of barcoded kits was conducted in two districts. This enabled providers the ability to distribute kits to participants directly. The results will inform future implementation plans.