All women and people with a cervix every five years now smear test

[justasking111]

Five years in Wales is this the norm in England, Scotland, Ireland?

Our surgery put it up on their FB page this week.

It was three years here last time I checked.

Yabu it's fine no reason to be concerned

Yanbu it's too big a gap.

"NHS England » NHS gives women Human Papillomavirus Virus (HPV) home testing kits to cut cancer deaths" https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/02/nhs-gives-women-hpv-home-testing-kits-to-cut-cancer-deaths/

Only in areas of London unfortunately.

However, superdrug, Asda sell them

This isn’t woolly. It begins ‘all women’. Perfectly clear.

• comment silenced by mn so as not to derail. I've edited it out.

Sign of things to come??

• can mnhq simply change the offensive title so others won't comment on it? @BeckyAMumsnet

This is what we're up against - from today: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/21/gps-use-ai-to-boost-cancer-detection-rates-in-england-by-8

No critical questions about whether these cancer findings are meaningful. Does finding them early benefit treatment outcomes? Would these cancers ever have caused death or morbidity? What are the harms if telling people they may have or have cancer when it would never have become an issue? What are the downstream costs? What are we NOT doing because we are so busy looking for and treating cancer?

And as we have seen, folks are different - some want at all costs to know if there is something wrong, or have a family experience that makes them anxious. Others would rather live in blissful ignorance until an issue becomes apparent, even if it is a late diagnosis. And all that is fine.

Screening programmes are in the business of making those risk-benefit judgements but individuals can and should may choices too. I wish this kind of cheerleading press coverage was a bit more balanced as it creates a false narrative on the benefit side.

Just a few more words about the smear test and it's creator and origins: it's posted online too. Dr Pap, test inventor, was originally a zoologist. He did a lot of work with guinea pigs. He became interested in their reproduction systems and studied them. Je obtained a paediatric speculum and started giving them smear tests. The guinea pigs might also have been drunk at the time of the test as he did work involving how alcohol affected guinea pigs and their offspring. He also roped in his wife who had a smear test nearly every day for decades. They also involved some of her friends. It could be said his wife and her friends were human guinea pigs .. .

It's not offensive it's NHS wording!!

The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

It's not rocket science if you have a cervix get tested.

I'm confused op, I thought discussing this was banned on your thread?

People with a cervix are women

Its somewhat tiresome that a thread that is important to health is being hijacked by posters with their own skewed agenda.

I posted in good faith because I believe 5 years is too long between tests. I urge everyone to pay around £55 For an over the counter test.

I pay £40 a time to see a psyotherapist because the NHS waiting list to see one is so long here and they see you once, print out an exercise sheet, and dismiss

And for people with literacy or language barriers? Or SEN? Still rocket science? Or an issue which potential creates more barriers to healthcare decision making for some?

Nope. Women are women. A woman can identify as a man if she wants to but she's still a woman. I'm not even going to start with non-binary.

Okay going forward I'm going to report every off topic trans whatever post If you're happy with your cervix keep it zipped this thread s for folks that maybe concerned about the level of care which has been reduced from three year checks to five.

Well maybe the government should be addressing that.

I agree OP 5 years is far too long.

I remember when the age requirement changed, I think it went from 21 to 25 in about 2007 I think, because I suddenly had a 4 year delay before getting my first one.

That was their first bad move 25 missed too many young women.

was there a spike in cervical cancer mortality?

It. Says. All. Women.
How much clearer do you want it. Everything it says after ‘All Women’ can be ignored if you don’t like it or don’t understand it. Initially there were Co paints when the NhS used the term ‘all those with a cervix’ as people said it was confusing and somewhat erasing of the idea of women. I agreed. I said those people weren’t anti trans/non-binary, they were pro women. But now I thin’ 8 May have been wrong. Those people are primarily anti trans/non-binary because they are now objecting to additional words, after a clear invitation to w9men, that might make some people feel more included/comfortable without it harming women at all. You can think trans/non-binary is a delusion, a social contagion, a nonsense, whatever you like, but all this language does is allow those people affected by the delusion/contagion/nonsense to still feel welcome for a useful medical test. It’s infuriating and disappointing.

Edit: sorry @justasking111 I can see you are infuriated with the derail but I felt it needed saying. I reference to your OP - yes, 5 years is too long but as I’ve said now they don’t even check for cancer I won’t be going for my next (and probs final one). That’s the scandal. It’s cost cutting at the expense of women’s health - they have the cells, the only reason not to test them is because HPV testing is cheaper.

I checked with the spire they're only doing the cheap test sigh

Some of them are legally living as men and therefore registered don't with their GPs as men. They don't come up for alerts if you filter patients by "women".

You can find it as offensive as you want and argue over semantics but it's a waste of time and energy when it's the law and has been for decades.

Please dont discourage trans men and non binary from getting checked. This language is meant to be inclusive and encouraging. People banging on with women, women, women can really discourage some from attending.
How would you like your trans child to die because they didn't feel like they could go for a smear test.

Actually, the move to 25 was because it was realised under 25's cervices were still maturing, and could display hugely abnormal results at one test and revert to normal just months later. Again, a lot of young women were over treated. Dutch women have first (self test) at 30 because it's recognised most under 30:s have HPV at some point. The Dutch only offer 5 tests over your lifetime. Their. CC incidence and death rates are amongst the lowest in the world

Some of them are legally living as men

Just look at this sentence. What total nonsense. That we can now have a 'legal sex' that is different to our actual biological sex. How did we get here and why on earth does anyone think this represents 'progress'? 😵‍💫