JSNA – People – Cancer Screening

Last Updated: September 2025

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, breast, and cervical cancer screening pages have new 2024 coverage data available.

Headline Figures

For all types of cancer screening, coverage is highest in PCN2.
Coverage of bowel cancer screening has been continually increasing since 2015, and in 2024 has a coverage of 65.5% across Barnet.
Breast cancer screening coverage remains below pre-pandemic coverage in Barnet and is below the England average. However, it was higher than the London average in 2024.
Cervical cancer screening coverage is higher in those aged 50-64 years than in those aged 25-49 years.
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. For all three screening types, PCN 2 has the highest current coverage across Barnet.

Bowel: In 2024, bowel cancer coverage in Barnet was 65.5%, which is above the London average (63.8%) but below the England average (71.8%). Coverage of bowel cancer screening in all PCNs has risen since 2013/14. In 2023/24, PCN 2 has the highest coverage at 70% and PCN1D has the lowest at 58%. Apart from PCN 1D and 1W, all PCNs are at or above the London average. However as it stands, all PCNs are below England average.

Breast: Breast cancer coverage in Barnet in 2024 was 63.4%, which is above the London average (61.5%) but below the England average (69.9%). Within Barnet, breast cancer screening coverage was highest in PCN 2 in 2023/24 at 72%, which is above the England average. All other PCNs are below the England average, with coverage being lowest in PCN 1D (57%).

Cervical: in 2024, cervical screening coverage in those aged 50-64 years was 70.3% – 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 67.6% 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%).

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%).

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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].