Her Way Forward · Good to know

You can do it yourself now

The main reason women give for not going for a smear test is the test itself. Lying on a couch, a stranger, a speculum, the whole business of it. That is no longer the only option. From this year, women who are overdue are being sent a kit to do at home.

This changed recently enough that most people have not heard about it.

The home kit

What it is and how it arrives

It comes in the post, in plain packaging with nothing on the outside saying what it is.
Inside is a swab, a bit like a long cotton bud, with written instructions.
You take the sample yourself, in your own bathroom, in your own time.
It goes back in a prepaid envelope. No appointment, nobody looking at you.

Kits are going out to women who are at least six months overdue. Women who have never been at all are being sent theirs first.

The swab is testing for HPV, a common virus that causes almost all cervical cancer. If it is not there, you are at very low risk and nothing else needs doing. If it is, you will be asked to come in for the usual test so somebody can look properly.

I would still rather go in person. Or I never got a kit.

Then book the ordinary appointment. It is offered to all women aged 25 to 64, every five years, and you can ring your GP surgery yourself rather than waiting for a letter.

Two things that sound sensible

You still need it

Many women believe screening is only for those who are currently sexually active, or that having had one husband and no one else means there is nothing to find. Both of those sound sensible. Neither is how it works.

HPV is extremely common, it is passed on by skin contact rather than only by intercourse, and it can sit in the body quietly for many years before it causes any change. The invitation goes to every woman aged 25 to 64 for that reason, and it is not a comment on anybody's life.

If you do go in person

Women in Wandsworth told researchers that one of the things stopping them was simply not knowing what happens. So, plainly.

You undress from the waist down and there is a paper sheet to cover yourself with
You lie back with your knees bent and apart
The nurse uses a small instrument to see the cervix, and takes a sample with a soft brush
The sample itself takes under a minute
It can be uncomfortable. It should not be properly painful, and you can say stop at any point

Things you are allowed to ask for

You can ask for a female nurse. You can ask for a smaller instrument. You can bring somebody with you and you can ask for extra time.

I would like a female nurse please, and I would like a bit of extra time because I am nervous.

None of that is unusual and none of it will surprise them. If English is not your first language you can ask the surgery for an interpreter, and that is free.

The other two

Cervical is the one people worry about. There are two more, and both are easier.

50–71Breast screeningAn X-ray of each breast, done by a female member of staff, taking a few minutes. You are invited every three years.

50+Bowel screeningA kit that comes to your house. You collect a tiny sample from one bowel movement with a small stick and post it back. Nobody examines you and nobody visits.

Wandsworth has some of the lowest screening uptake in the country, and among South Asian women it is lower still. That is not a failing of the women. It is what happens when a service is built without asking who it needs to reach.

If any of this is sitting on your kitchen table unopened, bring it to Communi-TEA. Somebody will go through it with you.

Where this comes from

NHS guidance and published research. Screening programmes change, so check the NHS website for the current position if you are reading this later.

Home HPV self-sampling kitsRecommended by the UK National Screening Committee in June 2025 and rolled out by NHS England from early 2026, to people at least six months overdue, in order of risk.
All women aged 25 to 64 invited every five yearsNHS, Cervical screening.
Barriers including embarrassment, fear of the procedure and the belief that sexual inactivity removes the needMixed-methods systematic review of barriers to breast and cervical screening among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women in the UK, BMC Health Services Research, 2023.
Wandsworth women not knowing what to expectResearch by Wandsworth Care Alliance with IVAR into cervical screening barriers among South Asian women, presented at the Women's Health Conference, September 2024.
Low uptake in Wandsworth and in South Asian communitiesWandsworth Care Alliance, and the Wandsworth Health & Care Plan 2025–27.

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