Millions to expand National Screening Solution

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Budget 2021 includes more than $55million to expand the National Screening Solution (NSS) to cover breast and cervical cancer screening.

Health Minister Andrew Little said in a pre-Budget announcement that the government is investing up to $55.6 million for a major technology upgrade for the national breast screening programme and the new system will be up and running in the next two years.

Also, up to $53 million to implement a new human papillomavirus (HPV) test for cervical cancer screening from July 2023. This investment includes funds for a new IT system to enable the programme change.

The Ministry of Health signed with Deloitte in January 2019 for the build and operation of the NSS on Salesforce technology, hosted by AWS.

The platform was first developed to support the roll-out of the National Bowel Screening Programme, but once operational, the National Screening Solution was to be expanded to support the delivery of other screening programmes, such as for cervical and breast cancer.

When Covid-19 hit New Zealand, the NSS was repurposed to become the National Contact Tracing Solution and since then has gone through 21 iterations. Most recently it has been expanded to become the new Covid-19 Immunisation Register.

Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said the current breast screening programme is opt-in, but the new system will actively reach out to eligible women.

“The current ageing IT infrastructure puts the programme at risk. It lacks the flexibility to be easily upgraded to meet the needs of the community, and is no longer supported well by vendors,” she said. 

“That’s why, in Budget 21, we have invested up to $55.6 million in a major upgrade of the technology, and another $10 million is earmarked to match population growth and catch up on breast screens missed due to Covid-19 lockdowns.

“The new technology will better equip the programme to reach the 271,000 women who are eligible to access breast screening but are not currently being screened, by being able to directly invite them and run targeted campaigns.”

eHealthNews.nz understands that the business case costs include business and IT resourcing and software costs for programme delivery, then multi-year operation of the services. 

A statement from the National Screening Unit in May 2018 said the transition to full HPV primary screening was being extended to allow time to develop a more robust IT system to underpin the programme.

“For HPV primary screening to be safely introduced, the clinical pathways must be supported by a fit-for-purpose IT solution. Simply adapting the current IT system is not a viable option,” NSU clinical director Jane O’Hallahan said at the time.

“It makes sense to take the time to develop a common shared IT solution that enables the nationwide delivery of all our screening programmes.”

Picture: Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

Read more Infrastructure news

Return to eHealthNews.nz home page