Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 22 June 2018.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will review the availability of specialist cervical screening services for women who have experienced sexual violence.
There is currently no specific guidance on screening women who have experienced sexual violence.
The NHS Cervical Screening programme does encourage practices to be sympathetic and supportive to all women going through the procedure, in order to make it as comfortable as possible. Support of a chaperone and for a female general practitioner/ nurse to undertake the screening is available to all women undertaking their screening test.
In addition, the NHS Cervical Screening Programmes, sample taker training guidance covers various barriers which sample takers should be considerate of, which includes fear of cervical screening following a history of sexual assault or rape. The guidance can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cervical-screening-education-and-training
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
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