Cervical screening (FOI)

Request

Could you share the number of women who have had a cervical screening in Jersey over the past five years? Could you break this down by month?

How many women had abnormal changes in the cells of the cervix?

How many women tested were diagnosed with cervical cancer in that time?

Response

Table 1 below shows the number of cervical screening samples received from women in Jersey by the testing laboratory over the past five years, broken down by month. This should equate to ‘the number of women who had cervical screening’ during these periods, however, it should be noted that a small number of samples may have come from the same patient at different points in their screening recall cycle.

Table 1 Number of cervical screening samples received from women in Jersey

In the past five years, 1125 women were reported as having abnormal changes in the cells of the cervix. Table 2 below provides a breakdown by year.

Table 2

In the past five years, 20 women have been diagnosed with cervical cancer. A breakdown by year has not been provided as the small numbers involved could mean that individual women may be potentially identifiable. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

The request asks how many women tested were diagnosed with cervical cancer in the past five years, it should be noted that, in a small number of these instances, women had never attended for cervical screening.

Article applied

Article 25 - Personal Information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if:

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law