P-04-640 Bring Down the Age of Smears to 18

My 18 year old daughter has cervical cancer and we do not want this to happen to any other women just because of the age limit on smear tests. We would like to call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to bring the age down on the tests from 25 to 18.

Additional Information

In March 2014 my daughter Jessica Bradford aged only 18 was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  Because of her age she was not allowed a smear test.  Jessica had all her cervical cancer injections in school.  Jessica attends Velindre cancer hospital in Wales where her treatment was carried out - 5 chemotherapies, 30 radiotherapies and 3 internal radiotherapies.  Due to this treatment Jessica can never carry her own children.  Myself and Jessica have set up a page on Facebook to raise awareness, called Jess Bradford's cervical cancer awareness. Since doing the page we have met lots of mothers who have lost their daughters from cervical cancer

We are also currently collecting signatures on Change.org petitioning the UK Government on the same issue.  Approximately 96,000 signatures have been collected so far.

Petition raised by: Julie Bradford 

Date petition first considered by Committee: 30 June 2015

Number of signatures: 525 signatures collected on the Assembly website. In excess of 100,000 signatures have been collected on a separate petition website about the same issue