Practices “waste hours” writing labels under new HPV screening system

General practice staff have been forced to waste hours of clinical time by handwriting labels for HPV cervical screening tests because a new IT system was implemented without the ability to print sticky labels.

The new system was rolled out to coincide with the new HPV primary screening programme and a new pathology and diagnostic service for London’s 1200 general practices.

Since the changes came into effect on 2 December 2019 the service has processed over 100 000 cervical screening tests, potentially equating to thousands of unnecessary hours spent writing out labels that were previously automatically printed.

GPs told The BMJ that the problem stemmed from a lack of consultation on the changes to the cervical screening service and that it could have been avoided with …