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Article History

Received: 21 September 2024

Revised: 1 June 2025

Accepted: 24 June 2025

First Online: 8 July 2025

Competing interests

: AS: A member of various expert groups providing advice to the NHS Cervical Screening Programme including on HPV self-sampling; holds an honorary contract with the University of Manchester to support research into HPV testing in urine samples and Professional Clinical Advisor to the NHS Cervical Screening Programme. KC: KC’s institution has received research funding or gratis consumables to support research from the following commercial entities in the last 3 years: Abbott, Euroimmun, GeneFirst, Qiagen, Hiantis, Seegene, Roche, Hologic, Barinthus Biotherapeutics PLC & Daye. KC has attended advisory board meetings for Hologic, Becton Dickinson and Barinthus Biotherapeutics PLC (no personal renumeration received; UK travel supported for Hologic). MR: Public Health England and the UK National Screening Committee provided funding for the epidemiological evaluation of various cervical screening studies, including HPValidate; current and former member of various expert groups providing advice to NHSE cervical screening programme; attended meetings with HPV test manufacturers; fees for attendance at advisory board and other meetings organised by Hologic, shared with employer, including travel cost reimbursement if applicable. AB: Member of the UK National Screening Committee Research and Methodology subgroup. AM, ChMi, CaMa, AMW: Employed by the Department of Health and Social Care in England. KH: Member of the Laboratory Technology Group advising the English cervical screening programme. TJ: TJ’s institution has received gratis consumables to support research from the following commercial entities in the last 3 years: Roche and Hologic. The institution has received funding for Health promotion from Roche. Has attended meetings organised by Hologic and was reimbursed travel costs. KE: Former member of the Advisory Committee for Cervical Screening and British Association for Cytopathology. KE’s institution has received gratis consumables to support research from the following commercial entities in the last 3 years: Roche and Hologic. The institution has received funding for Health promotion from Roche. Has attended meetings organised by Hologic and was reimbursed travel costs. KD: Adviser to Public Health England and subsequently NHS England; this position is funded by Public Health England/NHS England as a secondment from her main employment. She chairs the NHS England Laboratory Clinical professional group, and formerly the HPV development group and several groups related to the evaluation of self-sampling. Expert medicolegal reports prepared for claimants and defendants including in cases of cervical cancer. Advisor to Ontario Health on cervical screening issues. Consultancy services to Hologic, a manufacturer of HPV and cytology tests, commenced after this work was completed. All other authors: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

: Ethics approval was granted by Stanmore NHS Health Research Authority on 27 October 2020 (reference: 20/LO/1009). All women provided written informed consent. The study was included in the NIHR register (CPMS ID: 47399). IRAS record number: 286052. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.