Scottish cervical screening programme statistics
Annual update to 31 March 2021
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 05 October 2021
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
Update about our Scottish cervical screening programme statistics
This publication series is still being developed after we identified some data quality issues. Users should be aware that earlier published figures contained some errors. At a national level, these errors had only a small impact and do not change the overall findings or key messages from the statistics.
We informed the Office for Statistics Regulation when the issue was first identified and continue to work with them on the next steps.
On 24 February 2026, we published a new report under Official Statistics in Development. In this report, the data issues were corrected and revised figures were published back to the 2016/17 financial year. Anyone using these statistics should use the updated data available in Annual update to 31 March 2025 report. The full report also explains the future of these statistics in the planned developments section. Data from before 2016/17 can be found in Appendix 3 – publication metadata.
Details of future publications will be shared on our forthcoming publications page.
We welcome feedback as we continue to improve these statistics. Please contact the team at phs.adultscreening@phs.scot.
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland provides annual and quarterly cervical screening statistics. The report provides data on uptake by age group, NHS board, deprivation and human papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation status. In addition, data are presented on laboratory turnaround times, number of screening tests and results of tests by NHS board and laboratory.
For the period reported, cervical screening was routinely offered to women aged 25-64 in Scotland: those aged 25-49 every three years and those aged 50-64 every five years.
The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a temporary pause to cervical screening from March to June 2020. The impact of this can be seen in the lab samples processed, and is likely to be influencing uptake figures within the report.
Main points
- The uptake rate for cervical screening was 69.3% with just over one million eligible women having participated in the screening period as at 31st March 2021. Uptake has declined in recent years.
- Uptake increased with age from 55% for ages 25 to 29 to a peak of 79% in those 50 to 54 years, before reducing in the oldest invited age groups.
Source: Scottish Cervical Call Recall System
- Women from the most deprived areas are less likely to take part in the screening programme, with uptake only 63% compared with 74% in the least deprived areas.
- Cervical screening uptake is higher in HPV-vaccinated women (68%) when compared to non-vaccinated women (32%). The majority of cervical cancers are caused by HPV infection.
- Of those testing positive for HPV, around a third (65%) were negative with no sign of abnormal change in cells, 30% identified low grade cell changes and 5% of these women were identified as having high grade cell changes, including cervical cancer.
Background
The cervical screening test (also known as a smear test) takes a sample of cells from the cervix (neck of the womb) and checks it for human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the most common cause of cervical cancer.
Up until March 2020, women were invited for a cervical smear and samples were examined under a microscope for abnormal cells. From March 2020, samples are tested for HPV first and, if HPV is found, the sample is then tested for abnormal cells. This change is more likely to identify those women at risk of cervical cancer.
Further information
The next release of this publication is scheduled for September 2022.
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Older versions of this publication
Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.