A charity is urging women to attend their cervical screening tests, after figures showed one in four did not take up their invitation to attend an appointment.

Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust is making the plea as part of national Cervical Screening Awareness Week.

Almost 69% of women aged between 25 and 29 missed their screening invitation in 2010/11, while 23% of women aged between 50 and 60 also failed to get screened last year, according to the charity.

Robert Music, the charity's director, said: "Each year the UK screening programme saves 5,000 lives yet one in four Scottish women are not attending their cervical screening test and over 300 women in Scotland are diagnosed with the disease.

"Cervical screening can help reduce these numbers so the more we can do to stress the importance of this life-saving test the better."

He added: "With such a worrying decline in numbers, our campaign is also targeting Glasgow where uptake is 70% - the lowest in the country. Adverts urging eligible women to get screened will adorn buses across the city with a potential to reach 92% of the city's population."

UK-wide research by the charity highlighted several barriers to women attending. Some women said they did not feel screening was a necessary test.

Some found it difficult to arrange an appointment for screening around their work schedules, and said more flexibility from GPs around appointment times would encourage them to make it more of a priority.

Mr Music added: "Another major contributing factor to women not attending is embarrassment and fear of the procedure. We want to reverse this trend by reassuring those who are nervous about the test that it's a simple five minute procedure that could save their life."

For more information on cervical screening awareness week, visit the STV Health Centre, brought to you by NHS inform.