BAC Office · 12 Coldbath Square, London EC1R 5HL · Tel: +44 (0) 20 7278 6907 · Email: mail@britishcytology.org.uk · Registered Charity 276829
1 February 2019
New Public Health England (PHE) guidance
1 February 2019
The Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) and the British Association of Cytopathology (BAC) respond to today’s National Audit Office (NAO) health screening report
29 January 2019
Past President of the BSCC honoured
29 January 2019
The BAC have now had confirmation from the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards (ACCEA) of the opening and closing dates for the next round of national awards in England and Wales
24 January 2019
The BAC are delighted to host the 2019 Spring Tutorial on the theme of Practical application of reporting terminologies in diagnostic cytopathology on 29th March 2019
22 January 2019
21-27 January is Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, to highlight the role of biomedical science in analysing cervical cancer and HPV, the IBMS spoke to members Allan Wilson and Kirstie Rice
https://www.ibms.org/resources/news/could-self-testing-kits-save-women/
22 January 2019
Article published on Unite Live
21 January 2019
Do you know how cervical cancer can be prevented? During Cervical Cancer Prevention Week Jo's Trust want as many people as possible to know how they can reduce their risk of the disease and to educate others.
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/cervical-cancer-prevention-week
19 December 2018
The BAC have received a letter from NHS Improvement and bring to the attention of members and all across cytology
18 December 2018
Congratulations to Allan Wilson who has been confirmed as the IBMS President Elect from 1st January 2019.
https://www.ibms.org/resources/news/announcing-our-new-president-elect/
5 December 2018
The December Edition of Cytopathology (Vol 29, issue 6) is now available to review online with print copies following soon
30 November 2018
Can you inform the EFCS by completing a short survey with regard to immunocytochemisty?
30 November 2018
The NHS Cervical Screening Programme has made a significant impact on cervical cancer mortality since it was established in 1988, saving an estimated 5,000 lives a year.
22 November 2018
NHS England update on progress with the procurement of laboratory services to support the delivery of HPV primary testing within the NHS Cervical Screening Programme
15 November 2018
On 17 October 2018, Primary Care Support England (PCSE), delivered by Capita, informed NHS England and Public Health England that between January and October this year a significant number of cervical screening letters were not issued to women when they were due.
15 November 2018
All participants are invited to submit abstracts for their presentation at ECC 2019
8 November 2018
Cytology Manager Kay Ellis gives a guided tour of her department at Royal Hallamshire Hospital Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
https://thebiomedicalscientist.net/science/my-lab-cervical-screening-department
2 November 2018
There is a paucity of empirical evidence to inform the age at which to stop cervical cancer screening.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(18)30536-9/fulltext
1 November 2018
Sarah May, Deputy Chief Executive of the IBMS Editorial November 2018
https://thebiomedicalscientist.net/resources/editorial-change-cytology
25 October 2018
NHS England (NHS E) published a Prior Information Notice in mid-October 2018, informing the market of the intention to undertake a procurement process to support the implementation of HPV primary screening.
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/25/hpv-primary-cervical-screening-october-2018-update/
18 October 2018
On Saturday 13th October 2018, cytologists from across the UK attended the BAC/IBMS joint event Preparing for the Future
1 October 2018
The October Edition of Cytopathology (Vol 29, issue 5) is now available to review online with print copies following soon
28 September 2018
With the call for membership renewals in the post, BAC Chair Alison Cropper reflects on a momentous year of change in cytology
13 September 2018
The report on issues relating to the operation and management of the Irish cervical screening programme has been released.
https://health.gov.ie/blog/publications/dr-gabriel-scally-scoping-inquiry-into-cervicalcheck/
10 September 2018
There is one seat available for the BAC Executive
7 September 2018
The IAC & ASC are collaborating on developing a reporting terminology for serous fluid cytology
https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7aiFnS6JUsdzMlD
6 September 2018
Latest NHS Cervical Screening Programme blog
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/09/06/cervical-screening-consolidated-standards-out/
4 September 2018
Joint statement from the IBMS, RCPath and BAC
22 August 2018
A cytopathology study day is being held on Wednesday 26 September 2018 at 1:30-4.30 at Imperial College London
13 August 2018
The BAC & IBMS are running a joint event on Saturday 13th October 2018 - this will be free of charge to members of both professional bodies and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis
7 August 2018
Following a review of its delivery strategy, NHS England has agreed to begin a one-stage procurement process to reconfigure provider laboratories to support the roll-out of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) primary screening into the NHS Cervical Cancer Screening Programme (CSP) in England.
31 July 2018
The article below may be of interest to members, although many of us working in the English CSP will be too aware of these sorts of issues
2 July 2018
Latest Public Health England (PHE) Screening blog from Catherine Witney and Ruth Stubbs
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/06/22/expertise-underpins-cervical-screening-programme/
18 June 2018
Over the last few weeks NHSE have been undertaking four engagement events around England, and meeting many laboratory based staff.
18 June 2018
The BAC were delighted to run a session at the ECC 2018
17 May 2018
Cancer screening programmes have been much in the news in the last few weeks.
26 April 2018
Can you help lead the BAC by joining the Executive?
25 April 2018
Updated NICE guidance that may be of interest to those in the field of cervical cytology
28 March 2018
NHS(E) have announced a series of 'Market Engagement Events' which are planned to take place at four locations across England re: Primary HPV screening.
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/4adfa8e5-cb0b-421b-80c1-cb8d51bd5723
26 March 2018
Cervical screening provider leads are responsible for the quality and effectiveness of NHS Cervical Screening Programme services provided within an organisation.
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/03/26/new-guidance-for-cervical-screening-provider-leads/
27 February 2018
The announcement by NHS England (NHSE) that Primary HPV testing within the NHS Cervical Screening Programme will be implemented fully across England by the end of December 2019, and that to support this, the agreement of a strategy to commission up to a maximum of 13 laboratory services, was made in late 2017
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2018/03/01/primary-hpv-testing-update/
22 February 2018
BAC AGM, 4th November 2017, National Railway Museum, York
A post conference reflection by Jenny Davies, FIBMS
12 February 2018
The BAC are delighted that several of the lectures from the fully booked ASM held 4th November 2017 are now available for members to download.
8 February 2018
The study day on 16th April 2018 covers aspects of FNA practice including the value of onsite assessment and provisional reporting in H&N, EBUS and EUS suites
8 February 2018
IBMS/RCPath Conjoint Board for Cytology is asking for expressions of interest from Consultant Cytopathologists to join the Conjoint Board
29 January 2018
Following on from the Jo's Trust Cervical Cancer Prevention campaign last week the IBMS have produced an article highlighting the challenges facing cervical cancer screening in the UK
https://www.ibms.org/resources/news/the-challenges-of-nhs-cervical-cancer-screening/
22 January 2018
Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust is the only UK charity dedicated to women affected by cervical cancer and cervical abnormalities.
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/cervical-cancer-prevention-week-2018
10 January 2018
Please be aware that the 2018 Clinical Excellence Awards round will open on Tuesday 13 February and will close at 5:00pm on Thursday 12 April.
19 December 2017
Cervical screening prevents cancer by detecting abnormalities of the cervix and referring women for potential treatment.
We rely on 50 laboratories across England to report on cervical cytology (sometimes called smear test) samples.
19 December 2017
Primary Care Support England produce quarterly bulletins for cervical screening
https://pcse.england.nhs.uk/news/2017/december/cervical-screening-bulletin/
5 December 2017
The effectiveness of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme in Scotland has been assessed in a 7-year crosssectional study.
http://dtb.bmj.com/content/early/2017/12/04/dtb.2017.12.0560
10 November 2017
Women vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV) - thought to cause about 99% of cervical cancers - may only need three smear tests in their lifetime, a new study suggests.
8 November 2017
This report presents information about the NHS Cervical Screening Programme in England in 2016-17 and includes data on the call and recall system, on screening samples examined by pathology laboratories and on referrals to colposcopy clinics.
6 November 2017
HPV testing will be introduced as the primary screening modality in the cervical screening programmes in all four nations of the UK as well as the Republic of Ireland in the near future.
5 November 2017
The BAC announced the long awaited decision on the numbers of laboratories within the CSP in England on Saturday at the ASM. The official announcement was released late afternoon on the Friday 3rd November 2017, and the 140 delegates at the ASM were amongst the first to hear it.
27 October 2017
As members may be aware, there has been work over the last few months by NHSE working with PHE on plans to help alleviate the current cervical cytology backlogs across England.
5 October 2017
The number of young women in Scotland showing early signs of potential cervical cancer has dropped by 41% since a school vaccination programme was introduced, researchers have said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-41496953
4 October 2017
Revised edition replaces the 2015 version
27 September 2017
For several months there has been little news to report on the roll out of HPV in England.
21 September 2017
Health matters: making cervical screening more accessible
13 September 2017
BAC can report that the ASM 2017 has been approved for CPD purposes
http://www.britishcytology.org.uk/go/bac-cytology-meetings~10
22 August 2017
All providers of local NHS screening services in England should apply this guidance. This includes NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts, general practitioners and private providers.
14 August 2017
Acta Cytologica, the official journal of the International Academy of Cytology, lost its Journal Impact Factor in 2014.
10 August 2017
A press release issued today indicates that Scotland will introduce Primary HPV Screening within the Scottish CSP for an expected delivery date of 2019-20
9 August 2017
This document sets out the programme specific operating model (PSOM) for quality assurance (QA) of the NHS cervical screening programmes and should beread in conjunction with the ‘Operating Model for PHE Screening Quality
Assurance Service: 2015/16 to 2017/18’ and the relevant screening quality assurance service (SQAS) generic standard operating procedures documents.
24 July 2017
There has been media coverage today on the BBC (both on radio and on their website) about delays in the reporting of cervical cytology screening samples.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40686393. This highlights that an increasing number of women are not receiving their result letter within the target time of 14 days from sample being taken for 98% of samples. The reports seem to be based on the 2015-16 English statistical returns, and hence relate to the English cervical screening service up to 31st March 2016. As such, the data is not up to date, and many of us are aware that the situation has got worse and for many seems to show no likelihood of improving in the near future. The article on the BBC website, with quotes from several sources, highlights that the main issue is one of low staff numbers and laboratory capacity. This has been brought into sharp focus with the intended switch to Primary HPV cervical screening in 2019. Many of us are acutely aware of the issue of limited laboratory capacity. PHE has published a mitigation plan to try and assist those laboratories with significant backlogs, but the capacity for this is currently very limited, and is highly unlikely to be able to address the needs for extra capacity across the whole of England. In the absence of any other current strategy to help reduce demand or increase laboratory capacity, it is difficult to see this situation improving until Primary HPV screening is rolled out across England. Plans for Wales and Scotland are well advanced. The plan for England is still in development, and the latest news on this is shown below, in a communication from Alison Cowie, Programme Lead, NHS England - Public Health Commissioning Central Team in response to an email from the BAC and which has been sent to others in the programme:
Thank you for your email on the 12th July 2017, regarding the implementation of HPV as the primary screen within the Cervical Screening Programme I wanted to provide you with a further update on the programme plan following the latest HPV Primary Screening Receiver Board, which was held on Thursday 13th July 2017.
The board considered and agreed a revised project plan which covers the key milestones and decision making required in respect of commissioning the cervical screening services. Following discussion of the options appraisal internally within NHS England, we have been challenged to ensure that wider pathology reforms are considered within our deliberations. As you will see from the table below, there is a significant refocus on engagement with local commissioning teams in relation to the development of the commissioning and procurement strategies, as it was felt that further work was required to identify and understand the current position regarding laboratory configuration and networks, local pathology strategies, the existing contractual frameworks and to begin the discussions around pricing and tariffs. The local knowledge and intelligence gathered via this engagement with local teams will allow for recommendations and decisions to be based on what will operationally work on a local and regional level; it will also inform any future commissioning and procurement arrangements. Therefore, we have had to revised our plans.
The following table details the various work streams and timescales which are required to deliver the changes in line with the recommendation made within the Cancer Strategy for England 2015-20, that there should be national coverage of HPV as a primary screen across the cervical screening programme by 2020.
| Work stream | Timescale |
| Development and approval of a commissioning strategy | June – September 2017 |
| Development and approval of a procurement strategy | June – September 2017 |
| Pricing/tariff development | June 2017 - TBD |
| If commissioning strategy determines, procurement processes and/or contracting processes undertaken. |
September 2017 – December 2019 (contract commencement taking place between April and December 2019) |
| Full national implementation and coverage of HPV Primary Screening by December 2019 |
We completely acknowledge and appreciate that the revised plan does not necessarily correlate with previously agreed timescales for key decisions and that this may cause further frustration amongst your members, however we’re confident that the revised plans will ensure that the commissioning and procurement strategies are reflective of local arrangements and will support the safe and effective implementation of HPV Primary Screening into the Cervical Screening Programme. I appreciate how this is a difficult time for both commissioners and providers locally. As you are aware, work is ongoing nationally around mitigation in order to reduce TAT backlogs. A Risk Summit during the summer is planned between NHS England and PHE to firm up other options to aide mitigation. We will inform our local Heads of Public Health Commissioning of the outcome and ask that they cascade to local providers.
If you do have any questions or queries on anything contained within this email, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind Regards
Alison
We will continue to share what news we have, and get more answers to legitimate questions and concerns from us as professionals, many working in the cervical screening programme.
7 July 2017
In response to a query from a cytologist, and also by the BAC, asking when the announcement of the option appraisal decision for laboratory configuration was going to be, the following reply from NHS England was posted on the PHE blog on 3rd July:
3 July 2017
Article from the European Journal of Cancer
http://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049%2817%2930919-X/fulltext
14 June 2017
Last year, after reviewing the evidence, the UK NSC recommended that the HPV test should replace cytology as the first (primary) test in cervical screening.
12 June 2017
BAC members may wish to note a cytology practical microscopy workshop that is taking place on the afternoon of Sunday 24th September as part of the IBMS Congress - which is in addition to the three days of cytopathology lectures.
11 June 2017
The BAC announced the long awaited decision on the numbers of laboratories within the CSP in England on Saturday at the ASM. The official announcement was released late afternoon on the Friday 3rd November 2017, and the 140 delegates at the ASM were amongst the first to hear it.
7 June 2017
Can you help lead the BAC by joining the Executive?
31 May 2017
In Europe, the BAC has been collaborating with the International Cervical Cancer Prevention Association (ICCPA) on a cervical screening program in Moldova
25 May 2017
The results from the above survey are now available for members to view. We would like to thank all those who took part, and took time out to complete it.
19 April 2017
Be at the forefront of making scientific innovation an intrinsic part of delivering a world-class NHS
30 March 2017
Many thanks for everyone who took the time to complete the cervical cytology workforce survey, which closed last night
26 March 2017
Dr William Faquin on-line lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvyDl_LIR4E&feature=youtu.be&t=24s
15 March 2017
The BAC is undertaking a survey of the NHS Cervical Screening Programme cytology workforce to assist with informing the decision making on HPV primary screening implementation
20 February 2017
In response to concerns raised to the HPV Implementation Group around communication to service providers, questions were invited from the professional bodies.
7 February 2017
The BAC are delighted to be hosting our annual scientific meeting and AGM on Saturday 4th November at the unique National Railway Museum in York.
http://www.britishcytology.org.uk/go/bac-cytology-meetings~10
31 January 2017
Latest Public Health England blog with regard to the HPV test should replace cytology as the first stage in cervical screening.
26 January 2017
Cervical screening saves an estimated 5,000 lives a year by detecting abnormalities of the cervix early and referring women for effective treatment.
26 January 2017
Some of you may have received the following letter, from PHE, but if not please note the downloads available
17 January 2017
Ruth Stubbs, National cervical screening programme manager for PHE Screening, says that PHE has joined forces with NHS England to produce a process for mitigation, and advises that in order find out more details around the mitigation process laboratories should contact their local Screening and Immunisation leads
5 January 2017
Information on the 10th Residential Tutorial of the European Federation of Cytology Societies
http://www.efcs.eu/index.php/events-new-mainmenu-74/10th-annual-tutorial-in-cytopathology
19 December 2016
Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust is currently recruiting for volunteers to help with their first national Roadshow.
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/support/volunteer-for-jo-s/volunteering-for-jo-s/volunteer-our-roadshow
2 December 2016
As BAC members may be aware, Professor Mina Desai is stepping down as Editor in Chief of Cytopathology as from January 2017 and is passing the baton onto Professor Michael Sheaff.
22 November 2016
Cancer Research UK: tests for cancer diagnosis are under threat as labs struggle to cope with rising demand
18 November 2016
This report presents information about the NHS Cervical Screening Programme in England in 2015-16
17 November 2016
At least one in every four women invited for cervical cancer screening in England last year failed to attend, latest figures show.
10 November 2016
Where permission has been granted, ECC 2016 lectures available as downloads
http://www.britishcytology.org.uk/go/bac-cytology-meetings/ecc-2016
31 October 2016
Many BAC members will remember Eileen Hewer who was president of the NAC from 1998 to 2001. Eileen was pivotal to the introduction of the Advanced Practitioner and a pioneer in training and education in cytology.
30 October 2016
The September issue of SCAN is now downloadable for members
18 October 2016
Medical Journal of Australia article
6 October 2016
PHE screening team members and clinicians attended the ECC 2016 Conference in Liverpool
30 September 2016
Professor Martha Pitman, is giving a lecture in London at the 6th October 2016
27 September 2016
NICE - BAC members may be interested in putting themselves forward for this specialist committee
21 September 2016
Some speakers have submitted slides for ECC 2016 attendees to review ahead of the 40th ECC meeting in Liverpool (2-5th October).
19 September 2016
The continued publication in Cytopathology of high quality articles relevant to its readers depends, not only on the submissions received, but on a rigorous peer review process.
18 September 2016
Following the BAC letter to Dr Anne Mackie, Director of Screening PHE, her response is attached. She acknowledges problems with the current cervical screening service delivery, the concerns of our members, and issues with communication.
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