With the exception of information from the liquid based cytology (LBC) pilot site there has been limited data to date on the impact of the introduction of SurePath™ LBC in the NHSCSP. We will present data to show the impact on a medium sized laboratory (42 000 requests per annum) over the first phases of rollout. Data from before, during and post conversion, a period of 28 months, shows the following trends: (1) A significant fall in the inadequate rate (2) A slight decrease in the borderline / mild dyskaryosis rate (3) A small increase in the high‐grade squamous dyskaryosis reporting rate (4) An increase in both the number and specificity of glandular lesions reported (5) A largely unchanged positive predictive value for high‐grade abnormalities (6) A significant increase in laboratory productivity, unrelated to inadequate rate but through increased speed of screening. Although our experience is not directly comparable to the experience of the LBC pilot, our observations may well reflect that we were fortunate to be trained by staff from one of the LBC sites and thereby benefited directly from their experience.

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