CliniSys is set to play a major role in supporting England’s primary HPV screening service, after securing contracts to provide its requesting and reporting software to seven out of eight new laboratory hubs.
The company is now getting ready to deploy CliniSys ICE to support GP practices and laboratory services across the seven areas of the country, so family doctors and nurses can order tests and receive the results.
Four out of the eight successful NHS trusts or pathology networks that will be delivering the new service are also CliniSys WinPath laboratory information management system customers.
Matthew Fouracre, marketing manager of CliniSys, said: “England’s cervical screening programme is an important public health intervention that saves thousands of lives every year.
“The new primary HPV screening service should make it even more effective, and CliniSys is proud to have been given such a significant role in its roll-out.
“CliniSys ICE is used by practices across the country to order a wide range of tests for patients, and it will be our job to make sure that they can be connected into this new service, so they can support the women who come forward for cervical screening.”
Primary human Papillomavirus, or HPV screening, is a relatively new way of examining cervical screening samples. Traditionally, cells from the smear test were the first thing to be examined in a laboratory. With the new method, a check for HPV, a common virus transmitted through sexual contact, is the first test carried out.
In 2013, a trial at six laboratories in England indicated that primary HPV screening could reduce the incidence of cervical cancer, and the government committed to rolling out primary HPV screening across the NHS Cervical Screening Programme by the end of 2019.
NHS England subsequently invited NHS trusts and pathology networks to become hubs for the new service, covering London, the North East and North West, East and West Midlands, and South Central, South East and South West.
The commissioning board announced the winning bidders in June. Seven of the eight laboratory services chosen had selected CliniSys to provide ICE as the requesting and results software that would connect them to GPs.
Fouracre added: “We are now looking forward to engaging with NHS England’s regional public health commissioning teams, regional commissioners and the laboratories themselves on their mobilisation plans for this important new service.”