Welcome to our latest news summary featuring updates from the HSE National Screening Service. To keep up to date with our news, including upcoming events and job opportunities, read our news reports, follow us on X @NSShse, LinkedIn, and on Bluesky @nsshse.
CervicalCheck Programme Report 2022-2023 shows increased screening coverage
We have published our CervicalCheck Programme Report 2022-2023. Highlights in the report, which covers the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, include:
- 269,550 women were screened
- 89% of women screened tested negative for HPV
- the prevalence of HPV among the screened population is 11%
- of those who tested positive for HPV, 49% had no abnormal cells detected and are recalled in 12 months for a follow-up HPV screening test
- 44% of women who tested positive for HPV had low-grade abnormalities detected; 8% of women had high-grade abnormalities detected.
The report shows the five-year coverage for cervical screening remains high at 75%. This means that 75% of eligible women aged 25 to 65 had a cervical screening test in the five years preceding March 2023.
Read more about how the report shows increasing coverage as more women choose screening.
Supporting Ukrainian women to access breast screening
Our community champions project provides training to health workers to support people in their community to take part in screening.
Some of our community champions in Cork helped us to identify barriers to breast screening for Ukrainian women, which included changes of address at short notice leading to appointment letters not being received, and language barriers.
Our community champions gathered information from eligible Ukrainian women who were interested in attending for breast screening. We registered those who were not already on our database, and updated details for women who were already registered.
We prepared and printed information in Ukrainian, including our consent form, our breast screening information booklet, results information, and signage in our BreastCheck unit.
This pilot initiative provided screening to 39 Ukrainian women from three accommodation centres.
Read more about how we support Ukrainian women to access breast screening.
Research into HPV self-sampling in cervical screening under way
We are designing a feasibility study of HPV self-sampling in cervical screening. Our study will help us understand what changes would be needed to enable us offer self-sampling to women, if it is recommended by the National Screening Advisory Committee (NSAC).
NSAC is the independent committee that makes recommendations to the Department of Health about changes to population screening programmes. We will support the committee’s review of self-sampling by sharing the results of our feasibility study.
The study will evaluate the resources needed to deliver self-sampling; collect feedback from women, and their doctors and nurses; and identify any potential challenges.
A previous survey of over 2,000 women living in Ireland has shown that the introduction of self-sampling could increase the numbers of women taking part in cervical screening, and help to improve equity in screening.
Another study, of 200 sample takers in Ireland, shows that the majority of GPs and practice nurses are supportive of the introduction of HPV self-sampling.
Read about the next phase of research into HPV self-sampling in cervical screening in Ireland.
New research shows reasons people choose, and don’t choose, bowel screening
We’ve completed research that shows men and women have different reasons for taking part – or not taking part – in bowel screening.
Last year, we carried out an online survey to understand what motivates people to take part in bowel screening, and what stops them from taking part. The survey was completed by 385 adults aged 59 to 69 years across Ireland (173 men and 212 women).
We found that men were more influenced by their healthcare professional’s advice, while women were more motivated by an invitation letter. The biggest barrier for both men and women was fear of finding something wrong.
We’ll use the findings of this research to review and adapt how we communicate information about bowel screening and encourage more people to choose screening.
Read more about motivators and barriers to bowel screening.
Cervical screening data shows higher rates of disease in women aged 63 to 69 screened for the first time
In 2023, we completed an equity-driven project to invite women aged 63 to 69 to have a one-time HPV screening test with CervicalCheck. These women did not have the opportunity to have a HPV screening test because they had their final cervical screening before HPV screening was introduced in 2020; and before the upper age range for CervicalCheck was extended to 65.
Of those whom we invited under this project, over 30,000 women attended for an HPV screening test in the following 12 months. We analysed the data to see how many women who had never previously attended for screening came for HPV screening in response to the one-time invitation. We then compared the screening results of these ‘never-screened’ women to the screening results of previously screened women aged 60 to 65 who attended for screening between April and September 2023.
The data shows that the 446 women who had never been screened before, and who responded to this invitation, had higher rates of HPV, higher rates of high-grade abnormal cells, and higher rates of referral to colposcopy clinics, than those who had previously attended for screening.
This confirms that previous attendance at cervical screening reduces the risk of high-grade abnormal cells. It also emphasises the importance of screening at any age.
Read more about how there is higher rates of disease in women aged 63 to 69 screened for the first time.
More news in brief
Here is some more news we reported recently:
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