CervicalCheck open, limited to high-priority cases

THE number of women invited for CervicalCheck screening early next month will initially be limited to just 14,600 who are high priority, it has emerged.

CervicalCheck will be the first of the screening programmes to resume after being paused due to Covid-19 restrictions. BreastCheck and BowelScreen are not restarting until September.

The three programmes pick up around 1,700 cancers a year in people who are unaware they have the disease.

According to CervicalCheck it plans to restart cervical screening on July 6 and women who are a priority will be sent a letter with a time to book an appointment.

“Our plan to restart screening will depend on public health advice as the coronavirus restrictions continue to ease,” it told women.

Others included are women who need a repeat test because their last sample could not be tested and women on their first test.

After the first letters are sent it will move on to women who are eligible for routine screening, those waiting longest first.

Due to Covid-19 safety measures, women have been told they will have to speak to their GP over the phone before the appointment. The nurse or doctor will be wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and the patient will be asked to wear a mask, as well as bring their own pen to sign documents.

Women have also been told to plan to wait a little longer at the surgery for the test.

CervicalCheck has introduced HPV testing in all the labs it uses, which it says will find some 18 out of 20 cases of abnormal cells, compared to 15 out of 20, as produced by the previous cytology test.