The efficacy of a national Family Health Services Authority based cervical cytology system

District health authorities have been instructed to operate a cervical cytology call and recall screening programme using the age-sex registers held by the Family Health Services Authority. This paper reports the results of a 1989 survey of women from two diverse health districts to determine the uptake of cervical screening between these health districts. The results show a low uptake in all areas, even after accounting for inaccurate information. Many invitations were sent to the wrong address, or to women who were not eligible for a smear test. The former was a particular problem in the inner city district of Parkside. The provision of an effective scheme will depend on all those involved addressing the problems found by this study. This is essential if general practitioners are to meet the new targets for payment set by the government for cervical cytology screening.