Are smear test results taking longer to come back due to increase in woman having them at the moment?

[whoingodsnameami]

I was told results would be 2-3 weeks, its now been 4 weeks tomorrow, should I worry?

Sometimes takes 6 weeks here, sometimes a couple of weeks, depends on current uptake.

They always say at our surgery that the longer it takes to hear back the better as they rush out the abnormal results first.

The last place I lived didn't let you know at all, only your surgery so you had to ring them for the result. If it was abnormal they contacted you directly.

Thanks, that makes alot of sense.

When I had mine done about 3 weeks ago, the nurse said that normal turnaround had gone from 2 to 4 weeks. I'm waiting too!!

I had mine last week and got told 6-8 wks cos of more people having them

i had mine done just before xmas & had the results 2 weeks later (normal), i thought that was impressive.

Probably - if there is a 40% increase in people having them (I think that's the number) then it makes sense that the workload for the cytologists will have increased by that much, so you can expect that the length of time you wait will increase some as well (Although not as much as 40% longer, we would hope!)

Abnormal results still get priority.

I had one on Thursday and was told it would be up to 8 weeks

I was told about 4 weeks to wait for the results. My first smear test I had to wait up to 6 weeks so in my case, that's an improvement.

When they come, they come. I've waited 7 years to be tested again so hopefully a few more days won't make any difference.

I had one last week and was told it could be up to six weeks.

My sister had one last week and was told the wait would be 8 weeks.

We have had 40% more work, some days it's been double our normal workload. On Friday we were reporting out the tests taken on or around 9-10th March and our in-house target was the 13th so we are falling behind.
The turnaround time can vary between areas particularly if they've had problems recruiting or with illness.
Most labs will be taking longer than they were in say January - we just don't have enough staff! Many will be trying to sort out some overtime but it's the end of the financial year so it might be tricky.