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YEAR IN REVIEW – CHAIRMAN AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT
YEAR IN REVIEW CHAIRMAN AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT Welcome to the VCS Foundation Annual Report for the 2020/21 financial year. This report highlights our achievements and the emerging challenges for public health organisations during another year under the cloud of the global COVID-19 pandemic. During 2020/21 VCS Foundation has continued to deliver its high-quality services in cervical screening and other supportive routine tests, whilst becoming a key contributor to the Victorian response to COVID-19 – both as a high-volume testing laboratory and in supplying couriers to the quarantine hotels and screening clinics. The VCS Pathology laboratory increased SARS-CoV-2 testing capacity to meet the high demands that occurred during the Victorian lockdowns and outbreaks. With the unwavering support of our staff, the laboratory has seamlessly managed throughput of up to 1,500 SARS-CoV-2 tests per day, with most results provided within 24 hours, whilst continuing to maintain the very high quality of our primary cervical screening laboratory functions. As expected, primary screening tests (HPV) continued to decline due to the transition to five-yearly cycles of HPV testing as part of the renewed National Cervical Screening Program, introduced in 2017. The switch to a longer screening interval has resulted in transitional fluctuations for volumes of tests, with 2020 and 2021 modelled as low volume years before the commencement of the
next five-year cycle in December 2022. This expected reduction in cervical screening test volumes has enabled the laboratory to redirect its focus and resources to the COVID-19 response. There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic will hamper global efforts to make HPV vaccination and HPV based screening available to all adolescents and women. VCS Foundation has continued to find innovative ways to overcome this new challenge. Self-collected HPV samples, rapid point-of-care testing and same day treatment will be critical to providing safe and cost-effective screening into the future for women living in remote communities. Cervical screening rates fell dramatically during the pandemic, coinciding with much-needed public health measures to restrict movement and social contact. To ensure under-screened groups were not disproportionately affected by the pandemic, VCS Foundation launched an innovative initiative to assist clinicians to encourage and support underscreened patients to participate in cervical screening, offering to send home self-sampling kits to patients who were identified as under-screened during a telehealth consultation. Importantly, we designed this service to be embedded within primary care. Healthcare professionals, who also offered routine cervical screening services, ordered the home-based test and received the results, enabling them to discuss the results with their patients and provide any follow-up required. VCS Foundation continued to lead the implementation of the Victorian Government’s Cancer Screening Primary Care and Workforce Strategy 20192022, which includes the provision of education to primary care practitioners
and nurses to improve adherence to cancer screening clinical guidelines across the breast, bowel and cervical screening programs and improve equity and the screening experience for under-screened participants. Due to the pandemic, our education offerings transitioned rapidly to an online model. For example, we launched an accredited online HPV Self-Collection Clinical Audit to support clinicians in encouraging eligible under-screened patients to take up this alternative test. Cancer screening clinical education webinars were delivered in partnership with Cancer Council Victoria to GPs, nurses and practice managers across the state, particularly in areas with lower screening rates and those hit hardest by the pandemic. We also led the implementation of the Victorian Government’s Cancer Screening Data and Surveillance Strategy 20192022, which includes the provision of bowel, breast and cervical screening data and reports, to support service planning, monitoring and evaluation of initiatives, improve screening participation, identify under-screened groups and to support research. We have delivered detailed reports on participation, screens, invitations, bowel kits returned, cervical self-collection and timeliness to diagnostic investigations in addition to a data dashboard providing a snapshot of key cancer screening metrics. Work continues with program partners to access relevant datasets for integration into the VCS Data and Reporting tool for reporting on screening and cancer outcomes. The Population Health Team has continued to deliver the Participant Follow-Up Function on behalf of the Victorian Department of Health for participants who have had a positive
