Performance indicators for the National Cervical Screening Program
Performance indicators allow key aspects of the renewed NCSP to be monitored, and follow the screening pathway of the NCSP. The data required to calculate some performance indicators are not yet available, either due to the program being new and so insufficient time has passed to allow their calculation, and/or because data linkage is required. This is documented in the table below.
Performance indicators are grouped under each of the 5 population screening pathway stages of 'Recruitment', 'Screening', 'Assessment', 'Diagnosis', and 'Outcomes'.
Screening pathway | Performance indicator | Reported |
|---|---|---|
Recruitment | 1 Participation | Yes |
Recruitment | 2 Response to invitation | Yes |
Recruitment | 3 Rescreening | Yes |
Screening | 4 Screening results | Yes |
Screening | 5 Correlation of screening results | Yes |
Screening | 6 Screening HPV test positivity | Yes |
Screening | 7 Cervical cancer diagnosed after a low risk screening test result | No |
Screening | 8 LBC test in self-collection participants positive for oncogenic HPV (not 16/18) | Yes |
Screening | 9 Colposcopy in self-collection participants positive for oncogenic HPV 16/18 | Yes |
Screening | 10 Adherence to recommendation for follow-up | Yes |
Screening | 11 Follow-up results | Yes |
Assessment | 12 Colposcopy rate | Yes |
Assessment | 13 Time to colposcopy | Yes |
Assessment | 14 Biopsy rate | Yes |
Assessment | 15 Yield of high-grade abnormalities on biopsy among participants who attend colposcopy with higher risk screening results | Yes |
Assessment | 16 Positive predictive value of colposcopy | Yes |
Diagnosis | 17a High-grade cervical abnormality detection rate | Yes |
Diagnosis | 17b Cervical cancer detection rate | Yes |
Outcomes | 18 Cervical cancers diagnosed by time since last screen | No |
Outcomes | 19 Incidence of cervical cancer | Yes |
Outcomes | 20 Mortality from cervical cancer | Yes |
Yes = reported; No = data not available and not reported.
Note: For all screening pathway groups apart from 'Outcomes', the reported target age group for the performance indicators of 25–74 includes participants aged from 24 years and 9 months. This is because 24 years and 9 months is the age at which those eligible to screen are invited to screen in the renewed NCSP; inclusion of invitees and participants aged 24 years and 9 months ensures they are captured in the data if they screen prior to their 25th birthday.
Cervical screening data in Australia are sourced from the National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR). NCSR data in this report were sourced from the July 2025 release of the raw data extract (RDE) (NCSR RDE 11/07/2025).
The term 'participants' or 'invitees' used for NCSR data
This report uses the term 'participants' or 'invitees' when referring to NCSR data.
In this context, 'participant' and 'invitee' is defined as any person with a cervix. This may include women, transgender men, intersex people, and non-binary people.
Data on cervical cancer cases and deaths in Australia are sourced from AIHW databases – the Australian Cancer Database and the AIHW National Mortality Database.
The term 'women' used for incidence and mortality data
This report uses the term 'women' to mean 'female' when referring to incidence and mortality data as these data sources are based on sex assigned at birth. However, it should be noted that some people may not identify with this term.
Population data are used for the calculation of participation, incidence, and mortality, with hysterectomy fractions additionally used for the calculation of participation.
All data sources used in this report are detailed more fully in Appendix A.