SLUMP IN CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING

Alarm over 140,000 fewer smear tests for women

MORE than 140,000 fewer women were tested for cervical cancer last year after checks were paused during the pandemic, new figures have revealed.

Public Health Scotland data showed that 174,299 smear tests were completed in 2020-21 – down from 318,727 the previous year.

Figures dating back to 2006-07 show between 300,000 and 400,000 of the vital tests being done every other year.

But in April to June last year, almost immediately after coronavirus hit, there were just 2,737 of the checks carried out.

The figures follow on from the public health scandal that has seen women wrongfully excluded from the Scottish Cervical Screening Programme, which has so far been linked to the deaths of three women, triggering a review of 200,000 medical records.

Last night cancer charities said uptake must be improved.

Screening can detect the earliest signs of cervical cancer, allowing women to be treated before the disease can develop.

It is routinely offered to women aged 25-64 in Scotland. Those aged 25-49 are offered checks every three years, and those aged 50-64 are offered checks every five years. The figures also show women from the most deprived areas are less likely to take part in the screening programme, with uptake only 63 per cent compared with 74 per cent in the least deprived areas.

Samantha Dixon, chief executive of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, said: ‘These statistics must serve as a catalyst for action. We should not just focus on recovering from the impact of Covid but should be looking at how we can improve uptake and what can be done to remove the barriers that exist.’

Lisa Cohen, Cancer Research UK’s health professional engagement manager in Scotland, said: ‘We encourage anyone who is invited to participate in cervical screening and wants to take part, to make that appointment at their practice without delay.

‘This is especially important if you had an invitation but haven’t followed it up since the start of the pandemic.’

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said it was ‘worrying that so many tests aren’t being taken up and that women from more deprived areas are significantly less likely to take part’.

He added: ‘A reinvigorated cervical screening awareness campaign should be the cornerstone of work to detect cancer early.

‘It could help reach the three in ten eligible women who aren’t participating in these life-saving screenings. This must sit alongside the critical work to find all the women who have been wrongfully excluded from the programme altogether – errors that amount to nothing less than a public health scandal.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Pausing the national screening programmes was one of the most difficult decisions we had to make. All of Scotland’s screening programmes, including cervical screening, have now resumed routine screening, with measures in place to keep staff and screening participants safe.

‘The Scottish Government is committed to tackling inequalities in screening. That is why we have committed up to £2million to the Screening Inequalities Fund over the next two years.’

In August, it emerged health chiefs were contacting 174 women to offer urgent cervical cancer checks after they were wrongfully excluded from routine screening.

The Government announcement came after hundreds of women were contacted in June over the same blunder.

The issue, which affects women who have undergone partial hysterectomies, came to light earlier this year when a woman died after being ‘incorrectly excluded’ from the cervical cancer screening programme. That prompted an urgent review of similar cases and 434 women who had partial hysterectomies after 1997 were sent letters offering them fast-tracked smear tests.

An audit of women who had the procedure pre-1997 was also conducted. It found 174 were either wrongly excluded from screening or their status was unknown.

‘A public health scandal’