SOME women in Bexley are waiting more than four months to get vital medical test results.

In some cases, after waiting a third of a year, they have been told their samples weren't suitable for testing and will have to be done again.

Their cervical smear tests were all sent to the cytology department at Queen Mary's hospital, Sidcup.

This week the hospital told the News Shopper there had been a delay in sending some results and there was a backlog because of a national shortage of qualified staff.

A spokesman said: "The current waiting time for cytology screening results at Queen Mary's is 10 weeks and falling. "

One woman who contacted the News Shopper had waited four months and a week to get her results. She was anxious to get an all-clear because she had undergone minor surgery.

She said: "When the test finally came back, I was told the sample hadn't been suitable for testing and I had to undergo another one."

The woman said she had spoken to friends who had undergone a routine smear test in the early summer. One was still waiting for her results, another had only just received hers.

The woman added:"The practice nurse at my surgery told me quite a few tests were returned as unsuitable and were taking up to 16 weeks to come back."

She said one Chislehurst surgery had stopped sending samples to Queen Mary's and was having them tested at Farnborough instead.

Queen Mary's, which does 30,000 cytology screenings a year, says the number of unsuitable samples has risen recently because of new national guidelines on how to take smears properly. It says its cytology unit has still not been able to fill all its vacancies.

Queen Mary's clinical cytologist Gary Bradley said: "All our screeners have to work within national guidelines and are working to full capacity. We have done what we can by sending samples away but the laboratories which were taking them have become inundated with so many requests they can no longer take any more from us."

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