Colposcopy Clinic Booking Clarification

NHSCSP National Office has clarified that where a GP refers a patient for colposcopy as a first outpatient appointment, "choose and book" would apply. However, there is no requirement that colposcopy referrals following cervical cytology must go via a patient's GP.

Direct referral is defined as referral directly from the pathology laboratory to colposcopy. It is a specialist referral and as such "choose and book" is not applicable. Direct referral has a number of advantages including the speeding up of the patient journey and facilitating better management of clinics thus reducing waiting lists. Where direct referral is used the patient must be given clear instructions on how the appointment may be easily changed if it is not convenient.

The move to direct referral is encouraged by the NHSCSP and supported by the "choice" and "cancer" teams at the Department of Health. Many parts of the country are introducing this system as a service improvement for both patients and clinicians.

The North West QARC Annual Report 2010-11

Available as a pdf download by clicking the link below.

Annual Report 2010-11

Courses/Conferences/Meetings News

MSc in Advanced Practice (Colposcopy) offered by Cardiff School of Nursing and Midwifery Studies, Cardiff University

Bullet News

News items or bullet points that which may soon feature on this page:

• Equal access to breast and cervical screening for disabled women (NHSCSP Publication No.2 April '06) The purpose of this guidance is to describe good practice to ensure that disabled women have the same rights of access as all other women to NHS Breast Screening Programme and the NHS Cervical Screening Programme. It summarises current guidance on access to healthcare for disabled people, and is aimed at staff who support them and staff who work in the screening programmes. Family members and carers would also find it useful as it explains the principles of screening, including issues of consent, and describes how the screening programmes are organised. It is available from the Cancer Screening website.
  
  
• Taking Samples for Cervical Screening - A resource pack for Training (NHSCSP Publication No.23 Apr '06) This resource packs represents best practice for the training of sample takers. It replaces the Resource Pack for Training Smear Takers (1998), and has been updated to take account of developments in the NHSCSP including the introduction of liquid based cytology (LBC), and changes in the wider NHS. The pack is designed to be used for training doctors and nurses working in primary car, family planning clinics and other settings where cervical samples are taken as part of the NHSCSP. It is intended to be used by experienced trainers to enable them to offer a common core of learning to all sample takers, ensuring consistency across the cervical screening programme.
  
  The resource pack should not be used by practice staff for unsupervised training.