Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust receives funding from Tampon Tax in 2016 Budget

As part of his 2016 budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has announced Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust is to be a beneficiary of the Tampon Tax and receive £650,000 in funding to kick start a new campaign to get closer to eradicating cervical cancer.

Robert Music, Chief Executive said: "We are delighted to have been granted funds which will enable us to make a significant impact on women’s health. Cervical cancer is largely preventable through attendance of cervical screening, yet the numbers attending screening are falling. Every day 3 women lose their lives to cervical cancer and 8 face a life-altering diagnosis, we want to make cervical cancer a thing of the past and will ensure that every penny from this funding is spent on getting us closer to reaching our goal.

The campaign will be a wide-reaching awareness programme, with a specific focus on groups where there is a higher prevalence of non-attendance (women from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities; women from disadvantaged backgrounds; women aged 25-29 and women over 50). The funding will enable us to provide targeted education and information to these groups; to improve uptake of the NHS Cervical Screening Programme; to increase our knowledge around barriers to screening for these groups; and to produce a body of evidence on barriers to screening and how to overcome these. The ultimate objective is to save lives through early diagnosis and to reduce the significant cost of cervical cancer to the state, NHS and individual.” 

£12 million is raised every year from the Tampon Tax, a tax on sanitary products in the UK, and the Government has committed to using this money to fund women's health charities.