Earlier this month Health Minister Andrew Green announced that from 1 June the £16 fee for a cervical screening test at Le Bas Centre will be scrapped for women aged between 24 and 64.
At the same time Senator Green – who is not seeking re-election and is leaving the States next month – also said that his department was negotiating with GPs to get free smear tests – which can detect the precursors for cervical cancer, the most common cancer in women aged 35 and under – for patients by the end of the year.
A now-published ministerial decision about the cost of abolishing the charge says that in the short term the cost of offering free tests at Le Bas will be funded by money set aside within P82 Health and Social Services: A new way forward – a proposition agreed by the States in October 2012 which changed the way health and social care is provided.
The ministerial decision says: ‘The estimated additional cost to the Health and Social Services Department of making cervical smears free at Le Bas centre is between £53,000 and £182,000 a year depending on take up.
‘This will be funded non-recurrently through P82 monies, with a bid for recurrent funding submitted through Medium Term Financial Plan Three.’
Submissions for the third Medium Term Financial Plan – a government spending plan drawn up by the Council of Ministers and agreed by States Members – are due to be made in June 2019 with funding earmarked within the plan for allocation from January 2020.
Smear tests have been offered for free in the UK on the NHS since the 1980s. The JEP has previously called for smear tests to be made free to help encourage the one in four women who fail to attend regular screening to get checked. Every year in Jersey between one and two women die from cervical cancer.
Currently, women can pay as much as £57.50 to have the potentially life-saving test at their GP surgery.
The ministerial decision adds: ‘Funding for the free screening planned for GP surgeries will be identified during 2018 in cooperation with the Minister for Social Security.’
