Bristol cervical cancer survivor supports at-home testing kits
Maimuna Mohamed had not attended a routine HPV screening appointment for 7 years
A woman from Bristol, who had a hysterectomy after being diagnosed with cervical cancer, is encouraging others to get a routine pap smear.
It's as the NHS rolls out a new scheme to offer millions of women in England, who have not attended cervical screening appointments, a free at-home testing kits.
The move is to encourage more women to get screened.
Maimuna Mohamed says she had been putting it off because she didn't feel comfortable being exposed, particularly when she felt 'perfectly well'.
She said: "I know why women really don't like to do the pap smear, because it's an intimate area.
"You keep putting it off thinking, 'I don't need it, I don't need it'. For me, it was the intimacy of the procedure. So, I kept putting it off. And before I knew it, around seven years had passed since my exam.
"Luckily, they caught the cancer early and I had to do a procedure. But the doctors had to remove my uterus because there was very highly likely the cancer would come back and it would come back aggressive."
Maimuna explained how she felt receiving her diagnoses, saying: "With everybody, when they hear they have cancer, they just think how long do they have to live and how's the treatment going to be. So, it's like you start thinking about life and how long you have, what you need to do. And you just go into a bit of a depression because cancer is not an easy disease to go through.
"That really brought home to me why cervical screening is important. I had no symptoms. I wouldn't have known anything was happening if I hadn't gone for the test."
Women are encouraged to book a screening every five years to test for high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV), a group of viruses which can be passed on through sexual contact and cause no symptoms.
The new NHS scheme will send invitations to eligible women aged between 30 and 65, who have not attended screening appointments, from today to order a kit through the NHS app or online.
The phased rollout forms part of the NHS’s target of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040.
Dr Sue Mann, national clinical director for women’s health at NHS England, said: “Screening saves thousands of lives each year by preventing cancers and catching them earlier, but only around two thirds of women are attending cervical screening appointments when invited by the NHS.
“Offering millions of women an alternative test they can do from the comfort of their own homes will be a gamechanger – making it easier than ever for them to get tested for HPV.”
Latest figures from NHS England show 68.8% of eligible women are up to date with cervical screening, below the 80% target.
The health service estimates this means around four million women are not up to date.