Colposcopy Quality Assurance in the renewed NCSP — YRD
  1. Schedule
  2. Session 5: Quality Assurance: Colposcopy and Management of Cervical Disease
  3. Colposcopy Quality Assurance in the renewed NCSP

Colposcopy Quality Assurance in the renewed NCSP (3535)

Ian Hammond 1 2
  1. School of Women's and Infants Health , University of Western Australia , Crawley, WA, Aust
  2. National Cervical Screening Program, Department of Health, Australia

The National Cancer Register Act 2016 includes rules to enable the mandatory submission of colposcopy data to the Register. This will allow all those providing service to the NCSP (Cervical Screening Test providers, laboratories and colposcopists) to be assessed in terms of NCSP standards and performance measures.

Methods

The NCSP Quality and Safety Monitoring Committee established a colposcopy working party to develop the minimum colposcopy data set for submission to the National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR) and determine the quality standards for diagnostic and therapeutic colposcopy that are to be included in the Quality Framework of the NCSP.

Results

The quality of the colposcopic assessment procedures (diagnostic and therapeutic) will be regularly assessed. It is expected that all colposcopists who provide services to the NCSP, will participate in a cervical management quality assurance program. Quality standards have been developed and accepted by the NCSP, to provide guidance for individual performance review.The colposcopist will submit a data set for each clinical colposcopy interaction (diagnostic and therapeutic) to the NCSR. The aim is for colposcopy providers to submit all data electronically but a paper-based format will be available for a transitional period. The NCSR will correlate this data with other data (HPV, LBC and Histology results) and provide individual feedback including performance against benchmarked standards and their peers. This feedback can be used by the colposcopist for self-reflection especially when performance can be improved.

Discussion

For the first time the program will collect a mandatory data set from colposcopy providers that will close the ‘quality loop’ and complete performance and quality assessment over the entire national cervical screening program.

The colposcopist can use the NCSR feedback data to participate in a recognised Quality Assurance Program, such as C-QuIP administered by the RANZCOG. It is anticipated the C-QuIP will have a Clinical Advisory Committee that can assess the participants performance against agreed and recognised standards and provide advice to the participant when they are found to be an ‘outlier’ in terms of performance.