Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical smears are usually taken in primary care as part of the cervical screening program. This is available to women aged 25 to 64 in England. Women aged 25 to 49 receive invitations every 3 years and women aged 50 to 64 receive invitations every 5 years.

Patients who need follow up following an abnormal smear are referred directly to colposcopy clinics by the laboratory (outside of e-referral).

Cervical Screening Information leaflets are available in English, Arabic, Bengali, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, Gujarati, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi and Urdu.

This leaflet is also available in an Easy Read format.

Cervical Screening Management System

The NHS Cervical Screening Management System is live and accessed via an NHS Smartcard. It has replaced the previous call/recall IT system, Open Exeter, which is no longer accessible for the purposes of delivering NHS Cervical Screening Programme services.

Full guidance can be accessed at The NHS Cervical Screening Management System is live and accessed via an NHS Smartcard. It has replaced the previous call/recall IT system, Open Exeter, which is no longer accessible for the purposes of delivering NHS Cervical Screening Programme services.

Referring to Secondary Care for Cervical Screening

Most women/people with a cervix can have their cervical screening sample taken in primary care but there is a group of individuals for whom this is difficult. There is no set guidance for the number of attempts at screening that need to be made in primary care before referral, if an experienced sample taker has been unable to view the cervix and so take the sample then the patient “could” be referred after one failed attempt. If the sample taker is not experienced or there are patient factors on the day that have made it difficult to take the sample then it is reasonable for the women to be rebooked in primary care for a second attempt before onward referral to colposcopy.

Patients may find having a cervical screening sample taken difficult for a number of reasons, there are useful cervical screening resources that can be shared with patients as well as reasonable adjustments that can be made such as a longer appointment or bringing a companion. For peri/post menopausal women use of vaginal oestrogens for a minimum of 6 weeks before attempting to retake a cervical smear can significantly help (as long as not contraindicated). For patients who have a history of trauma where intimate examination is difficult, consider referral to psychosexual counselling team.

Easy Read and Other Formats

Reasonable adjustments are a legal requirement under the Equality Act (2010). Examples of reasonable adjustments in cervical screening include:

• Offering double appointments.
• Offering pre-visits for familiarisation.
• Sending easy read invitation letter or an easy read leaflet or easy read result letters.
• Being accompanied by a family member or support worker.
• Consideration of mobility issues e.g., hoist, bariatric equipment, standing aids.
• Consideration of trauma informed approaches to cervical screening after sexual violence.

If you need support or advice and guidance about supporting a patient with a learning disability, contact the Adult Learning Disability Health Service on 0300 124 5888 or sirona.bcldtadviceline@nhs.net

You can also view the population screening timeline poster with contact details for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

An Easy Guide to Cervical Screening

What is Cervical Screening

Having a Smear Test

Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust - The Smear Test Film

Somali easy read guide for Cervical Cancer Screening

Resources

Cervical screening resources - Transformation Partners in Health and Care

This link is for a directory of cancer screening resources providing information, advice and guidance for health and social care professionals and people in caring and supporting roles, to aid conversation with their patients and service-users.

Resources are divided into four sub-sections as follows:

• Programme-specific screening information for health and social care professionals
• Programme-specific screening information for patients and service-users
• General screening information for health and social care professionals
• Other useful screening information and resources for patients and service-users

(Developed in partnership with the NHS North Central London Cancer Alliance and the NHS England (London) Cancer Screening Commissioning Team)

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Information provided through Remedy is continually updated so please be aware any printed copies may quickly become out of date.