Posted: 4 June 2024
The Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer is pleased to announce that they have received government funding to undertake a nationwide healthcare provider education campaign about supporting patient choice in cervical screening. The campaign intends to educate providers about the reliability of HPV self-collection and encourage them to offer self-collection as a choice to all eligible (asymptomatic) cervical screening patients. This provider campaign is being undertaken ahead of a nationwide patient-facing campaign set to debut in September, also funded by the Australian Government, promoting the HPV self-collection option in cervical screening.
Through the provider campaign, GPs are being encouraged to contact their pathology providers to ensure they have the correct swabs and instructions to offer self-collection to eligible patients, and to confirm their pathology providers can process these samples.
Self-collection is just as sensitive for the detection of HPV and CIN2+/adenocarcinoma in situ as a clinician-collected sample and can help overcome screening barriers in under-screened groups (e.g., privacy/modesty concerns, fears of discomfort and pain, previous trauma, etc.). Therefore, self-collection can help engage those who would otherwise not participate in screening—but only if they are provided the option to do so.
If you are a healthcare provider and want to get up to speed on HPV self-collection and cervical screening, you can visit campaign resource hub to find webinars, podcasts, provider resources, and other CPD opportunities.
You don’t have to be a cervical screening provider to support the campaign – to spread the word about the importance of supporting the choice, you can check out the stakeholder toolkit.
