Cervical screening for healthcare providers

The Secondary Prevention Branch within Preventive Health SA delivers a range of activities to maximise participation of South Australians in the National Cervical Screening Program.

On 1 July 2022, the National Cervical Screening Policy changed to recommend that all participants in the National Cervical Screening Program will be given a choice in screening method - either self collected or clinician collected. This announcement follows a review of the evidence conducted by The Medical Services Advisory Council (MSAC) which concluded that ‘HPV testing using self collected samples is just as accurate as using clinician collected samples’.

Please note that a consult with a cervical screening provider is still required, no matter whether your patient requests self collection or clinician collection. Dr Lara Roeske, The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) advises:

“The GP does not need to supervise the collection in itself, but ensure a private place behind a curtain or in the patient toilet for the self collection to occur. For people who do not feel confident to take their own self collection swab the GP can assist and there’s no need for a speculum, it’s just important that this is still treated as self collection and needs to be noted as such on the pathology report."

A telehealth consultation may be appropriate ahead of self collection and for patients who would otherwise struggle to get to the surgery, a pre-arranged postal service is available through some pathology providers. Please ask your pathology provider about whether they are able to support home based self collection following a telehealth consult.

Clinics are required to select a pathology provider ahead of offering self collection to: obtain instructions on how to forward samples, order a stock of the swabs used by your pathology provider and order patient education materials. Some pathology providers use a dry swab system while others use a dry swab for collection of cells which are later suspended in cell medium. Please note that consumables are not necessarily interchangeable between pathology providers.

There are currently four pathology providers operating in South Australia that are accredited to process self collected samples. Please note additional pathology providers are likely to become accredited over time.

The date of your patient’s last screen is critical to determine eligibility for screening. Patients who are not eligible for cervical screening will either receive an account from the pathology provider, or have their sample rejected.

Your clinic’s screening records may not be accurate as patients sometimes choose to visit a different clinic for cervical screening as they feel embarrassed doing the test with their usual GP.

The most accurate way to check the date of last screen is to contact the National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR) via:

• phone: 1800 627 701
• web: access to the NCSR is integrated into most medical practice software Healthcare Provider Portal
• clinical software: healthcare providers that have integrated their Clinical Information System with the National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR), are able to interact directly with the NCSR from their existing software using the NCSR Hub.