Mums offered free childcare to attend smear tests

The UK’s largest platform for parents and childcare is offering mums an hour of free childcare so they can attend a smear test screening.

The childcare service, childcare.co.uk, is offering this nationwide service, and more than 500 childcarers have signed up to offer the free child care so far.

After a number of independent childcare providers were offering the free childcare, so mother’s could attend smear tests, childcare.co.uk was inspired to introduce the same service.

Smear tests help doctors determine if a women is at risk of developing cervical cancer, which in 99.8 per cent of cases is actually preventable with early treatment.

Two women every day are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 200,000 women every year are diagnosed with abnormal cell changes in their cervix, which could lead to cancer if left untreated.

Women attending their smear test is currently at the lowest it has been for 20 years.

But, mum’s can now sign up sign up here for free professional childcare while they attend a cervical screening appointment.

In the UK, women are invited to attend a cervical screen appointment from the age of 25 to 64, by the NHS, in order to detect cancer cells and prevent cancer.

The smear test usually takes just 5 minutes, but childcare.co.uk is providing mother’s with one hour of free childcare so that mum’s get travel to the doctors and allow waiting times at the doctor’s surgery.

The founder of childcare.co.uk Richard Conway said: ‘There’s been a lot in the media about a fall in women not attending smear tests for various reasons, and I suspect a main one for mothers is not finding the time around their children.

‘We wouldn’t want women missing out on their smear test because of a lack of childcare and we loved that individual childcarers were offering this, so we thought we’d help out. Within the first few hours of us asking our members, we had more than 500 childcarers sign up to the initiative. We hope this will make a huge difference!’

Childcare.co.uk is a platform offering parents a way to connect with babysitters, child-minders, nannies, nurseries and schools.