Madam, – This medical practice welcomes the introduction of CervicalCheck, the national cervical screening programme, and believes that it will, in time, reduce mortality from this important cancer. However, unlike its cousin BreastCheck, it does not provide a service where none existed before, and there is an unusual teething problem with the new service.
This practice, like many others, has been running its own cervical screening recall system for some 18 years now. We have a successful and scientifically rigorous recall structure which our patients, both medical card and private, respond to. This proven practice based system is now under threat.
For the first year of CervicalCheck, any woman aged 25 to 60 could contact the practice and receive a due medical smear. That smear served as the point of registration with CervicalCheck, either online or using a Lo-call number. This is now the point of registration with the scheme.
This intervening step has created three adverse effects. First, women who take the step of registering with CervicalCheck are now automatically invited to attend the practice for a smear test, even though it may not yet be due. In this way, one of our patients has been recalled 13 months earlier than is necessary. Second, women due a smear and recalled by the surgery have then to register with CervicalCheck before attending. Thus another of our patients due a smear still waits for a CervicalCheck invitation nine weeks after she registered online. As a consequence our cervical screening activity during September was 75 per cent lower than the preceding three months. Third, many of our more disadvantaged patients may never get around to registering, resulting in lower uptake of cervical screening in the group most at risk.
Surely our patients and our straitened taxpayers are entitled to a system which avoids smears for women who don’t require them and avoid delays in the taking of smears for those now due them? Instant eligibility for CervicalCheck via online registration of patients due a smear by our surgery staff would surely be an improvement? Meanwhile we urge all eligible women aged 25 to 60 years to register on Cervicalcheck.ie or Lo-call 1850 454555 as a matter of priority. – Yours, etc,