From 1 July 2022, the National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) will expand screening test options, offering self-collection as a choice to all people participating in cervical screening.
These changes mean that health care providers may start to see an increase in the volume of requests from patients to use self-collection as an option for their cervical screening test.
What you need to know
All participants aged 25-74 years old will have the choice to screen using either a self-collected vaginal sample or a clinician-collected sample from the cervix, accessed through a health care provider in both cases.
Access to self-collection is currently only available for those over 30 years old who are more than two years overdue for screening or have never screened.
To support these changes, the NCSP: Guidelines for the management of screen-detected abnormalities, screening in specific populations and investigation of abnormal vaginal bleeding have been reviewed and updated to support the self-collection eligibility expansion.
The updated guidelines bring together the best available evidence to prevent, diagnose and manage cervical cancer, providing recommendations for health care providers with patients in specific situations, such as people displaying symptoms and in some follow-up settings where a co-test (HPV test and a cytology test at the same time) is required.
The guidelines make it clear that where an HPV test is needed, self-collection should be an option.
The updated guidelines won’t come into effect until 1 July 2022 but you can download a PDF version of them now for review.
Patient resources and education modules for practitioners are being reviewed and updated to reflect the changes and will be shared when available.
What you can do
Read through the key messages that provide more details around the changes and how you can support your patients in offering self-collection as a choice for cervical screening.
Talk to your local pathology laboratory to confirm that they support processing of self-collected samples (including referring samples to accredited laboratories for processing where necessary), and order the correct swabs and other consumables, so you can offer self-collection to your patients.
For quality improvement support to improve cervical screening rates in your practice visit Primary Care Impact.
For clinical guidance visit Mid and North Coast HealthPathways | Cervical Screening.
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