Who it's aimed at?
This toolkit has been created for Midwives to support efforts to increase the uptake of cervical screening across Cheshire and Merseyside. It has been developed by the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB Women’s Health and Maternity Programme, in conjunction with NHS England.
Health professionals who are having regular contact with patients can provide tailored information and advice to ensure people have high-quality health information available to them. In this way Midwives and other maternity staff (e.g., maternity support worker) are ideally placed to help women to make informed choices about cervical screening.
How learners will benefit from doing this course
This toolkit aims to equip Midwives with consistent information about cervical screening, to increase opportunities for raising awareness of the importance for attending for screening postnatally and reduce potential barriers to participation. Communicating with patients is key to understanding barriers which may influence a patient in their decision or ability to participate in screening. There can be many barriers to screening uptake, such as embarrassment, pain, anxiety, previous negative experience, history of trauma/abuse, disabilities, cultural issues, language, and communication difficulties. With support many people can overcome these barriers through discussion, information, education and reasonable adjustments, all principles that underpin the personalised care approach.
Completing the toolkit will enable Midwives to have more informed conversations about cervical screening with their patients. This will help improve screening rates across Cheshire and Merseyside and reduce the incidence of Cervical cancers.