WE CARE April blog
The WE CARE project contributed to the April CHEME learning set. This was an exciting opportunity to bring together academic, clinical and international partners through a strong collaboration between Bangor University and Uppsala University, Sweden, alongside valued partnerships with the My Body Back Clinic, London. We were particularly pleased to welcome Dr Linette Backeman as a visiting academic to North Wales, whose contribution provided important insights from the Swedish context.
The session focused on our shared understanding of compassionate cervical screening care for women who have experienced sexual violence and abuse. Discussions highlighted the “long shadow” impact of violence and abuse on screening attendance, with international evidence reinforcing ongoing challenges around participation and trust in services. Living-experience insights emphasised the need for more flexible, and compassionate approaches that prioritise safety, choice and dignity.
The learning set also supported forward planning, including the co-production of a compassionate care practice model and toolkit, and the next phase of economic evaluations to measure the impact on this enhanced screening model using a distributional cost-effectiveness analysis, discrete choice experiment and a social return on investment. Overall, it provided a valuable space to integrate international learning, strengthen partnerships, and align around a shared direction for improving cervical screening care. We want to achieve equitable access to compassionate cervical screening care for all women. We were also thankful to our Bangor colleagues for their questions, reflections and feedback on our presentation.
There is a significant moment in any research project when ethical approval is granted. This milestone marks a shift from planning and developing key project documents to beginning work with women and practitioners. For the WE CARE project, this moment is particularly important. The study focuses on improving cervical screening care for women who have experienced sexual violence and abuse, so getting the ethics right has been a detailed and sensitive process. It has involved care consideration of safety, choice, dignity and respect, and how to design research processes that enable different experiences and voices to be heard in a meaningful way.
Now, with ethical approval in place, we are starting the next phase. We have launched the survey (link here if you have interest in completing this survey) and are now preparing to start the interviews with women. Please get in touch if you have any interest in receiving further information about this stage of the project.
The survey is designed to be anonymous and is focused on asking about the acceptability of HPV self-sampling as an option for women who have experienced sexual violence and abuse. Essentially, what would make care feel safer and more accessible. It has been shaped to minimise distress, with clear language, the option to skip questions, and signposting to support. Alongside this, we are preparing to begin interviews and focus groups with women. This is a core part of the project, it’s where we aim to start to understand living experiences in depth.
What matters most is how these conversations are approached. Women will be able to choose how they take part, for example, one-to-one interview or in a group setting, online or face-to-face discussions and at a pace that feels right for them. There is no expectation to disclose personal experiences of violence and abuse. The focus is on discussing experiences of cervical screening care, and how services can potentially better support them. Consent is ongoing, not a one-off moment, and participants can pause or stop at any time.
This approach reflects a wider commitment across the project: to place control with participants, not the research process. As outlined in the study protocol, sensitive and compassionate research practice runs through every stage of the data collection, from recruitment, data collection, to data analysis, and to how findings will be shared.
Starting this phase feels both exciting and responsible. Exciting, because this is where the project begins to generate the insights needed to shape a model of compassionate care. Responsible, because we have a duty to ensure that women and also practitioners have the space to share their views and experiences safely.
Over the coming months, this work will build towards a co-produced model of cervical screening care that is more compassionate, more flexible, and more responsive to women’s needs.
Dr Ceryl Teleri Davies, 17/04/2026