East of England Screening Hub

This is a fully funded NHS initiative to use text messaging technology to send out reminders to patients invited for Cervical Screening in order to increase coverage as an addition to current services.

Participate

For queries please contact hub@iplato.com

Cervical Cancer Screening Programme

  • NEL Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) will identify women who are overdue their cervical screening and/or have never attended a screening from the age of 25.5. This information will be sent securely to iPLATO healthcare. These women who have been identified as eligible will be sent a text message reminder to let them know they are overdue.
  • The SMS Programme will be in addition to existing programmes. Please do not confuse this service with the national PHE texting programmes that are taking place. This is a Barnet CCG initiative and selects different cohorts of eligible women to be contacted.
  • To enable this programme, practices will have to enable the patient identifiable data sharing agreement on EMIS Enterprise Search and reports. This allows patient identifiable data to be sent to iPLATO to
  •  The text message is as follows:
    <GP SURGERY NAME>: You are now overdue your cervical screening. Please call <GP number> to book. Evening/weekend appts also available on <02039486803>. Screening saves lives. More info here: www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-screening. Contact your GP to opt out of SMS. Thank you.

Data Processing and Data Sharing Summary

  1. A live connection to the practice clinical system needs to be established to facilitate this programme.
  2. If a new connection is required, iPLATO (text messaging and call provider), will be in contact with the practice following sign up. This will only take 5-10 minutes over the phone.
  3. iPLATO will facilitate the ongoing extraction of client demographic data via the practice clinical system phonebook, the data will be minimised as far as possible.
  4. All data is processed within the N3 network.
  5. For the Breast Screening Programme, the London Breast Screening Service will securely provide iPLATO with NHS Numbers only for women that meet the eligibility criteria.
  6. For the Cervical Screening Programme, NEL CSU will use EMIS Enterprise Search and Reports to securely provide iPLATO with NHS Numbers only for women that meet the eligibility criteria.
  7. Only eligible clients in the Screening Programme will be contacted.
  8. iPLATO Healthcare acts as a data processor for the service.