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RCOG World Congress 2025

June 23 - 25, 2025 | ExCeL London, UK

EP.1771

The Impact of Telephone Counselling on Cervical Screening Attendance Rates

Poster Presenter

Manaswini Mahadevan

Authors

Manaswini Mahadevan, Callum Wapstra

Affiliations

Newcastle University

Part of Topic

Obesity & public health

The Impact of Telephone Counselling on Cervical Screening Attendance Rates

Manaswini Mahadevan¹, Callum Wapstra¹, Dr Amith Paul²

1Newcastle University; 2McKenzie House Surgery, Hartlepool

 

Background:

The NHS cervical screening programme currently prevents around 70% of cervical cancer death.

If everyone eligible attended regularly this figure could rise to 83%.

  • The NHS Cervical Screening programme offers routine screening every 3 years for individuals aged 25 to 49, and every 5 years for those aged 50 to 64, with an overall aim of achieving 80% coverage across the eligible population. 

  • If individuals don't respond to the initial invite, GP surgeries follow up, most commonly through text message reminders.

  • At McKenzie House Surgery in Hartlepool, a practice serving a predominantly low-income population, cervical screening attendance has historically been low.

  • Despite having received multiple text reminders,320 patientsaged 26 to 49 had never attended a cervical screening appointment.

Aim:

This Quality Improvement Project (QIP) aimed to determine if telephone consultations focused on education and patient-tailored counselling could improve attendance, while investigating the main reasons for non-attendance.

Methodology:

A cohort of 156 patients aged 26 to 31 who had never previously attended cervical screening were selected. Each patient was contacted through a telephone consultation, providing a more empathetic and interactive alternative to generic texts or surveys. The calls focused on:

  • Delivering information about the importance and benefits of cervical screening

  • Exploring personal barriers that prevented screening attendance

  • Motivating patients to take action by guiding them to book an appointment

Patients openly shared their reasons for non-attendance, which were categorised into seven key themes. The conversation was tailored to address each person's questions and concerns. Those willing to attend were sent a link to book an appointment via text message the following day.

Results:

49 of the 156 patients contacted answered the phone and agreed to participate. Of the 49 participants, 33(67.3%) women were willing to attend screening, and 9 (18.4%) women booked and attended cervical screening for the first time.

Of the 9 attendees, 3 were found to be HPV positive and 2 were subsequently referred for colposcopy.

  • The most common reasons for non-attendance were being too busy (34.7%), deeming screening to be irrelevant (20.4%), and feeling embarrassed or scared (14.3%).

  • Patients who cited time constraints often struggled to fit in cervical screening due to work schedules or childcare during the day.

  • Among the 9 who attended cervical screening after the consultation, the main reasons for non-attendance were time-related barriers in 33.3% and embarrassment or fear in 22.2%.

Limitations:

  • Small sample size

  • Inability to directly book appointments

Conclusion:

  • This QIP shows that personalised telephone consultations help tackle barriers to non-attendance, ease anxieties and boost cervical screening attendance. 

  • Barriers like lack of time, fear, embarrassment and limited knowledge were best addressed through real conversations rather than generalised messages.

  • Following these results McKenzie House Surgeryexpanded the approach among all ages, with admin staff now making the calls and directly booking appointments for patients who agree.

  • We aim to repeat this QIP on a larger scale to further assess the impact of telephone counselling on screening attendance.

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank all the staff at McKenzie House Surgery, Hartlepool, for their valuable support and collaboration throughout this project. We are also grateful to Dr Heidi Stelling from Newcastle University for her guidance and direction. Finally, we extend our sincere thanks to the patients who participated in this study for their time and contribution.

References:


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