Cervical Screening Timescales

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 11 January 2022.

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Photo of Laura Anne Jones Laura Anne Jones Conservative 2:08, 11 January 2022

Thank you, First Minister. It has been incredibly concerning for all the women of Wales, regarding the move from three years to five years between cervical screenings, as you can see from the sheer number of people who have signed that petition, up to over 1 million now. I must admit my own panic initially, when hearing the news, having lived through the Jade Goody effect—I don't know if you remember her—her sad death from cervical cancer and the publicity campaign that ensued from that on the importance of having cervical smear screening. It made a huge difference, that campaign.

It still concerns me, and has made many people anxious, that there is an extra whole two years before you can be screened, because, as I'm sure you're aware, some people's cells will grow at a fast rate, and will develop in a couple of years. I do understand that, in the last couple of years now, we have a screening that identifies HPV first, and then looks for cell changes afterwards, and, if there is HPV present, that then cell changes are looked at next, which is a welcome change. It's a brilliant advancement in cervical cancer smears, and hopefully will save lives. However, the most worrying thing about all of this, as has been outlined by Vikki, is that the publicity campaign was so bad. The communication was worryingly bad, and ensued a lot of panic across the nation and alarmed people and was not informative at all in a way to reassure people about the changes, the welcome changes. So, First Minister, due to the significant public outcry on this, will you now please launch another campaign, in the same way as the Jade Goody campaign was back in the 1990s, to inform our citizens of the significant changes that have taken place and restore faith in the screening process, which is a worry in itself, as well as to encourage all those women who haven't stepped forward in the last 10 years to come forward for screening themselves? Thank you.