A UK woman has issued an urgent warning to other women after being diagnosed with cancer, which led her to a realisation.
Jasmin McKee, from Hampshire in England, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at 25 years old after delaying her routine pap smear.
In the UK, women were able to receive their pap smear once every three years, but NHS England chose to extend the period to screening for those without HPV history to five years.
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Now 26, McKee explained that she first began to notice something wasn’t right when she started experiencing lower back pain and bleeding after sex in 2023, but believed it was caused by her copper coil contraceptive.
But in March 2024, when she attended her HPV screening, having delayed it because she heard about ‘horror stories online’, she found out that she was HPV positive with a large number of abnormal cells.
Shockingly, McKee received her HPV vaccination in high school, which vaccinates against nine different types of HPV.
However, it does not completely protect a person from developing cancer, it simply minimises the risk.
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Sadly, for McKee, she was diagnosed with stage three cervical cancer which had spread to the surrounding tissue, leaving her ‘numb’ and hiding the news from her family.
She said: “Everything just goes a bit numb… it’s just such a big shock.
“The thought did go through my head of, ‘What am I going to tell my grandparents?’
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“I actually didn’t tell my family for quite a while.
“I didn’t want the people that I love the most feeling sad for me. I just didn’t want them to worry.”
She received surgery in November 2024 and then radiotherapy in January 2025, but both methods were unsuccessful.
So, she began chemotherapy in April.
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She is now expected to finish treatment in September 2025 but has created a GoFundMe campaign to help with the costs of living as she cannot work.
However, she said because of her diagnosis she has realised the importance of booking your cervical screenings and hit out at NHS England’s choice to extend the HPV screening for those between 25-49 to five years.
She said: “When there are big changes like this, it can feel like they (NHS England) are not really taking women’s health seriously.
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“I think that was probably one of my first thoughts when I first read about the changes… it can feel quite dismissive.
“It’s a scary thought that there could be women who go under the radar.”
She added: “It [a cervical screening] won’t always lead to a diagnosis, but it’s just to be on the safe side.
“Every three years is obviously a long time in itself, but I think a lot can happen in five years, and then someone might not know about cancer or something else until it’s too late, and it could have been prevented with more regular smear tests.
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“So I do think [the change] was disappointing to read.”
An NHS England spokesperson said: “We recognise that changes to cervical screening can seem worrying but want to reassure everyone that this new approach is based on robust scientific evidence and an expert recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee.
“The NHS cervical screening programme tests for human papillomavirus (HPV) and uses a better and more accurate test than before.
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“This means if you test negative for HPV, you don’t need to be screened as often as your risk of developing cervical cancer is very low.
“If you test positive for HPV, we’ll monitor you more closely with additional tests and follow-up appointments.
“This personalised approach ensures everyone receives the right level of screening based on their individual risk factors, providing better protection while reducing unnecessary procedures.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.
Britt Jones