Cancer Screening

Cancer screening involves testing apparently healthy people for signs of the disease. NHS cancer screening programmes can help to diagnose cancer or risk of cancer earlier and improve the likelihood of successful treatment. There are currently three national cancer screening programmes in England:

• Bowel: offered to men and women aged 50-74 years, every two years.

• Breast: offered to those registered as a women aged 50-71 years, every three years.

• Cervical: offered to people with a cervix aged 25 to 64 years. Screening is offered every three years up to 49 years of age and every five years from 50 to 64 years of age.

The cancer screening dashboard includes data for all three screening programmes and compares the screening coverage in Barnet to coverage seen across London and England.

Targeted lung cancer screening is being rolled out in some areas across England, and is expected to be available everywhere by 2029. There is currently no national data published for this screening programme and so it is not included here¹.

What’s new?

The bowel and breast cancer screening pages have new 2025 coverage data available.

Headline Figures

• Coverage of bowel cancer screening has been continually increasing since 2015, and in 2025 has a coverage of 67.3% across Barnet.

• Breast cancer screening coverage dropped following the COVID-19 pandemic but has since rebounded to 67.2% in those aged 53-70 years old - this is higher than the London average but below the England average.

• Cervical cancer screening coverage is higher in those aged 50-64 years (70.3% in 2024) than in those aged 25-49 years (58.2% in 2024).

• 58.3% of cancers in Barnet are diagnosed in stage 1 or 2 – this is significantly higher than the England average.

Narrative

Looking at screening data at the PCN level allows us to compare how coverage rates vary within Barnet. We can also see that, within PCNs, coverage significantly varies at the GP level.

• Bowel: In 2025, bowel cancer coverage in Barnet was 67.3%, which is above the London average (65.2%) but below the England average (72.9%). Coverage of bowel cancer screening in all PCNs has risen overall since 2013/14. In 2024/25, PCN 2 has the highest coverage at 70.8% (similar to the England average) and PCN1D has the lowest at 60.2%. Apart from PCN 1D, all PCNs are similar to or above the London average.

• Breast: Breast cancer coverage in Barnet in 2025 was 67.2%, which is above the London average (65.2%) but below the England average (71.7%). Within Barnet, breast cancer screening coverage is highest in PCN 2 in 2024/25 at 71.7%, closely followed by PCN 4 (71.1%) and PCN 3 (70.5%) - all are similar to the England average. Coverage is lowest in PCN 6 (64.8%).

• Cervical: in 2024, cervical screening coverage in those aged 50-64 years was 70.3% – this is similar to the London average but below the England average of 74.3%. In 2023/24 in this age group, coverage was lowest in PCN 6 at 68% and highest in PCN 2 at 75%. For those aged 25-49 years, coverage was highest in PCN 2 (66%) and was lowest in PCN 1D (55%). Across Barnet coverage in this age group is 58.2% - this is similar to the London average (58.4%) and below England average (66.1%).

In 2018, 58.3% of all cancers were diagnosed in stage 1 or stage 2 in Barnet. This is statistically similar to the London average (55.9%) and significantly higher than the England average (54.4%).

¹: National Healthcare Service (NHS), 2025. Lung cancer screening. Available via: https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/lung-cancer-screening/ [Accessed 24/09/25].