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Routine audit is an essential part of screening

Routine audit is an ethical requirement of screening

Disease prevention and health promotion activities must be audited to ensure that they are achieving their goals and giving the best protection possible for the future public health of the country, according to a letter to this week's BMJ.

The value of audit as part of the quality assurance of such initiatives is particularly significant in light of recent publicity surrounding discrepancies in the NHS cervical cancer screening programme.

The authors describe a national audit of cervical cancer screening, which has been running since 1992, and enables rational decisions to be made about modifications on issues such as quality, screening interval and target age groups. The clinical value of these databases is enormous, stress the authors, since before they existed, follow up of women with abnormal results was often inadequate.

They believe that routine audit is an essential part of any screening programme, and they urge health authorities to continue this activity despite recent concerns about using patient information without informed consent.

"The benefit in terms of cancer prevention is sufficiently great to warrant the secretary of state making regulations in accordance with clause 68 of the Health and Social Care Bill, and we urge him to do so," they conclude.

Contact:

Peter Sasieni, Coordinator, Cervical Screening Unit, London, UK (via Dawn Boyall, Imperial Cancer Research Fund Press Office) Email: d.boyall@icrf.icnet.uk

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