The Practice Incentives Program Cervical Screening Incentive aims to encourage GPs to screen under-screened women, that is women aged at least 24 years and 9 months but less than 75 years who have not had a cervical smear in the last four years, for cervical cancer and to increase overall screening rates.
For more information, read the Cervical Screening incentive guidelines (.docx, 29KB).
A toolkit for general practice
A toolkit has been developed to assist healthcare providers to engage under-screened and never-screened women in cervical screening. The toolkit includes strategies for the following groups of women:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women
- Women from CALD backgrounds, including women who have experienced female genital cutting
- Women with disabilities
- Women who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) and have a cervix
- Women who have experienced sexual assault
- Women from remote areas
- Older women
- Women who experience socio-economic disadvantage
- Women who have had the HPV vaccine
HealthPathways
Clinical guidelines for cervical screening can be found on the HealthPathways website: melbourne.healthpathways.org.au.
Further assistance
North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN) can help your practice improve cervical screening participation rates by providing assistance with:
- Practice self assessments for cancer screening
- Cancer screening action plans
- Coding cancer screening in medical software
- How to review your practice data (Pen Cat Tool) to identify patient cohorts
- How to develop a robust reminder and recall system for cervical screening
- Patient information on cervical screening
For further information or to arrange a practice visit please contact Prevention and Screening Program Officer Angela Ouroumis on (03) 9347 1188 or email: angela.ouroumis@nwmphn.org.au.
