By Maeve Waldron, Coordination Executive, CervicalCheck, National Screening Service
We’ve published a new revision of our standards for quality assurance in laboratories providing HPV testing, cytology and histopathology services to CervicalCheck. This revision updates the quality standards and requirements against which our laboratories are assessed. It takes into account existing guidelines within laboratory medicine including ISO accreditation standards, quality assurance programmes, Five Nations, and other international screening programmes.
About CervicalCheck
CervicalCheck is for women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 65 who have no symptoms of cervical cancer. The purpose of cervical screening is to prevent cervical cancer and reduce the number of deaths from cervical cancer, by finding it at an early stage when it can be easier to treat. Our long-term goal is to make cervical cancer rare in Ireland.
Quality assurance
Quality assurance (QA) is the process of checking that standards are met and focus on continuous improvement. Each part of the screening process must be fully quality assured and monitored to make sure it meets the standards and leads to the best possible outcomes. We regularly monitor and measure laboratory performance against these standards to make sure we are meeting our purpose. This work is overseen by our senior management team (SMT) and QA committee.
Approval groups
The Laboratory Advisory Group (LAG) propose, review and are first-line approvers for our laboratory quality standards. It provides advice to our SMT on clinical and operational aspects of the screening programme that are referred for their consideration.
The Clinical Advisory Group (CAG) are second line approvers for our clinical programme standards. It advises and makes recommendations to our SMT on clinical pathways and protocols.
Our SMT provides senior leadership and direction to the cervical screening service, ensuring robust management and accountability arrangements for all aspects of the service.
Review process
We keep our standards under review and revise them, as necessary, when new evidence or data becomes available. We capture required changes on our quality management system as change requests.
Members of the LAG independently reviewed and assessed the proposed changes and existing revision of the laboratory standards against international standards. The group identified any potential gaps where a QA standard needed to be developed or amended and made recommendations to ensure that the standards are appropriate and drive quality improvement.
During the review some QA standards were updated, archived or changed to quality requirements. This occurred where there was significant change to clinical practice; changes to screening pathways; where standards did not have any outcome measures; and where there was publication of new evidence. Where a current QA standard was archived, but remains clinically relevant, we’ll continue collecting data to allow for future analysis, if needed.
The revised standards were approved by the SMT in March 2025.
We’ll carry out a formal review of the standards in line with our QA Policy Framework.