On 1 September 2010 CervicalCheck – The National Cervical Screening Programme will enter its third year of operation and final year of its first three year screening round. To coincide, the programme will move to the third phase of encouraging participation among women with the introduction of direct programme entry (by smeartakers) of new eligible women. The move will be in support of the ongoing issuing of call and re-call letters of invitation to women aged 25 to 60.

CervicalCheck became available to over 1.1 million eligible women on 1 September 2008. Since its launch, the success of the programme has exceeded all expectations. From 1 September 2008 to 31 August 2009, over 284,830 women received a free smear test as part of the programme.*

The aim of the first phase of encouraging women to participate began with the launch of CervicalCheck on 1 September 2008. During the first 12 months of operation, CervicalCheck offered eligible women open access to screening to meet what was anticipated to be an unprecedented demand for cervical screening services.

The second phase of client participation was introduced on 1 September 2009 with the programme moving to an organised call, re-call system of invitation in line with best international practice. Following an initial temporary dip in the numbers of women screened, the move proved successful with current statistics indicating that CervicalCheck will have provided more smear tests to women during its second year of operation than its first.**

Commenting on the move to the final phase, Tony O’Brien, Director of the National Cancer Screening Service said: ”CervicalCheck is an incredibly successful cancer screening programme. The first two phases of encouraging participation in CervicalCheck have proved effective in encouraging women to attend for a free smear test. Initially the move to an organised call, re-call system of invitation in 2009 was met with opposition from some members of the medical community. However, as proven internationally, it was necessary to introduce and establish an organised call, re-call system of invitation before supplementing the system with direct programme entry by smeartakers. As the programme enters its third year of operation, it is timely to introduce the final phase of encouraging client participation – direct programme entry by smeartakers.”

“Introducing direct programme entry by smeartakers will help those remaining women who have not yet proactively availed of a smear test or responded to an invitation to participate in the programme. I am confident that this move will ensure we can meet our ambitious target uptake rate of 80 per cent by the end of the second screening round in August 2014.” concluded Mr O’Brien.

Direct programme entry is introduced as a means of recruiting new eligible women, in particular from minority populations and ‘harder-to-reach’ women, into the programme in support of the aim of achieving 80 per cent coverage of the eligible population.

From 1 September, registered CervicalCheck smeartakers will be able to facilitate a smear test for new eligible women (aged 25-60) without the woman having a letter of invitation. A new online facility through www.cervicalcheck.ie will enable smeartakers to check a woman’s eligibility before taking the test.

Over time, based on a target uptake rate of 80 per cent, a successful national, quality assured cervical screening programme has the potential to significantly reduce mortality rates in the screened population by as much as 80 per cent.

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* Full CervicalCheck programme statistics for the first year of operation (1 September 2008 to 31 August 2009) will be published in the first CervicalCheck Programme Report later in September 2010.

** Full CervicalCheck programme statistics for the second year of operation (1 September 2009 to 31 August 2010) will be published in 2011 once fully evaluated and verified.