NHS Offers 4 Million Women HPV Home Tests to Lift Cervical Screening
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 24
NHS Offers 4 Million Women HPV Home Tests to Lift Cervical Screening
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 24
Summary
Nearly 4 million women in England who missed cervical screening appointments will be invited over the next year to order a free HPV self-testing kit through the NHS app, text, email or letter.
Around one-third of eligible women have recently not taken up screening, and the home swab kits are aimed at overcoming barriers such as embarrassment, lack of time and worries about discomfort.
If a returned sample shows high-risk HPV, the woman will be invited for a follow-up cervical screening appointment; the NHS still says clinician-led screening remains the best way to prevent cervical cancer.
London trials suggest self-testing could bring one in 10 women forward for screening, lifting uptake by about 400,000 a year as the NHS targets eliminating cervical cancer by 2040.