Also in this section:

• Best practice prior to taking a cervical screening >
• Best practice following a cervical screening test >
• Supporting survivors of sexual violence before, during and after cervical screening >
• Barriers to attending screening >
• Vaginal bleeding – guidelines for those under 25 years >

We offer a variety of services designed to help support all women who need it, from those who are worried about cervical screening all the way through to those facing a terminal diagnosis. The below services are available to all women no matter their situation.

Signposting the women you engage with to these services may help them to feel better supported or calmer. Being a practice nurse/GP is an extremely busy job and you can use the Jo’s services to help support you, as well as your patient.

Helpline
Our freephone Helpline offers women support and information from volunteers who have had personal or professional experience of cervical cancer or cervical abnormalities and have had training in telephone helpline skills. The vast majority of the calls we receive on the helpline (45% in 2014) concern cervical abnormalities, this is followed by HPV and cervical screening as the two most covered topics (20% and 18% in 2014, respectively). This shows that women being dealt with in primary care are often in need of support, reassurance and information, and signposting them to our services could be very beneficial for them.

• Helpline: 0808 802 8000

Online forum
Our moderated forum provides a safe space for women, and their partners, friends and families to come together to share experiences, get advice, and seek and provide support to each other. We have forum discussion groups on many different topics around cervical screening, HPV and abnormalities, which may be relevant to the women you interact with.

• Forum discussions on cervical screening

Ask The Expert
Our Ask The Expert service allows women to ask specific questions related to all aspects of HPV, vaccination, cervical screening and abnormalities. Questions are answered by our volunteer medical panellists who are qualified experts that have the skills to answer the questions asked by our users. The service is completely confidential.

• Ask The Expert service
• More details on our medical panel

Resources for you

Jo’s materials
We produce a wide variety of information materials and resources both in print and online.

Printed materials

• An EasyRead guide designed for women with mild to moderate learning disabilities and their carers in order to help them understand what the cervical screening is, why it is important to attend, what happens during the appointment and what their rights are.
• Posters to put up in surgeries, clinics and offices that emphasise the symptoms of cervical cancer, promote the uptake of cervical screening and HPV vaccination, and publicise our free helpline to women who need further support regarding cervical screening
• Credit card sized mini factsheets that you can give out to women, which give a brief overview of topics like HPV and cervical screening

All of these printed materials and more can be ordered straight from our online shop.

Visit our online shop >

Download materials

We have a number of materials available to download. Some will help you support your patients, and some will help us support you. HPV is becoming our most asked about topic and we want to help you support anyone with questions in the best way. We have developed Talking about HPV: A guide for healthcare professionals based on the calls and feedback we have had. It has a short overview of HPV, feelings people may have about the virus, common questions you may be asked, and some ways to answer those questions. It focuses on the language we use around HPV and how that can shape someone’s experience.

Download the free guide on our online shop >

Mandy’s Story
Mandy Ferncombe is a Health Improvement Practitioner at East Dunbartonshire CHP who regularly orders our materials.

“Jo’s has an incredibly well stocked range of materials that I order regularly and give out at every visit I make. The NHS has great resources, but actually not a lot on cervical cancer so for Jo’s to be there concentrating on the issue, being experts, that’s invaluable.”

Read the rest of Mandy’s story to hear how she uses the Jo’s materials, who she gives them to and what she thinks of them.

Online materials
We have a large amount of information on our website for any women who would like more information on all aspects of HPV, vaccination, cervical screening or cervical abnormalities.

Our videos
Over the years we have produced a number of video resources covering many topics that may be relevant to the women you engage with. See our video resources, including films made for women with learning disabilities, women with low health literacy and more.