A PRIVATE healthcare firm is to offer a potentially life-saving cervical cancer screening test to North-East women currently denied the revolutionary programme on the National Health.

Liquid cytology screening, which is claimed to be 80 per cent more effective at diagnosing the disease than the existing smear test, as well as being less invasive, is already available on the NHS in Scotland - but not yet in England.

Direct Health 2000, the private company which hit the headlines by setting up a single jab vaccination programme for measles, mumps and rubella at Darlington's Woodlands Hospital, plans to offer establish a similar clinic for cytology screening.

As well as Scotland, cytology screening is in widespread use in America and Australia, but the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), which advises the National Health Service, is awaiting the results of pilot projects before it sanctions the treatment here.

In the meantime, women who are willing to pay about £40 will be able to receive it at the Woodlands Hospital.

Kathryn Durnford, of Direct Health 2000, said: "We do a lot in the clinics in London and Liverpool, and we have done some at our Swansea outreach clinic.

"Although we haven't carried out any screenings in Darlington yet, we have established that we would offer it there."

About 3,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year in England and Wales, of whom 1,200 die from the disease.

The current NHS screening programme involves a sample of cells being taken from the woman's cervix using a disposable spatula device.

As more than 80 per cent of cells are discarded, it can produce an unreliable result.

Liquid cytology is considered to be more dignified, involving the "brushing" of cells from the cervix, and also more reliable, as elements such as blood and mucus are filtered out of samples.

Ms Durnford said: "Women often have a nervous and lengthy wait for their results, while we can put our patients' minds at rest or send them for treatment within three days."

On Thursday, the family of Christine Stothard, of Bowburn, near Durham, was awarded more than £330,000 in compensation after Gates-head's Queen Elizabeth Hospital failed to diagnose cancer from three cervical smears, resulting in Mrs Stothard's death.

The North Yorkshire Cervical Cytology Screen Group, representing doctors, technicians and patients, has complained that in delaying introducing the system, Nice is failing women.

A Nice spokeswoman said further guidance would be issued following the trials' completion next May.