East End patients receive smear test results in record time

05 November 2009

WOMEN being tested for cervical cancer in the East End are receiving their results in record time, according to the latest figures.

Patients turning up at the Royal London Hospital and GP surgeries across Tower Hamlets for smear tests are finding out their results within two weeks.

Barts and the London Trust which runs the hospital in Whitechapel and St Bartholomew's together with NHS Tower Hamlets and Newham Primary Care Trust were one of ten NHS `sites' in the country to join a national trial.

The trial was aimed at cutting the time it takes to process smear test results by 2010.

Barts trust on its own processes an average 5000 tests a month but the whole team triumphed in getting 100 per cent of cervical screening results back to patients within a fortnight.

And 91 per cent of the results even reached patients in just a week.

The trust says using first-class post, posting results back to GPs on a daily rather than a twice-weekly basis, producing printed, rather than handwritten, labelling to avoid samples being lost and more staff training has helped speed up the process.