Ann Summers redesigns speculum to encourage women to get Pap smears
‘It’s no bigger than a rampant rabbit’: Ann Summers redesigns speculum used for Pap smears to encourage more women to get tested for cervical cancer
Ann Summers has helped redesign the medical instrument used to perform smear tests in an effort to encourage more women to book the NHS test.
As National Cervical Screening Week kicks off, the British company, better known for its racy lingerie and range of sex toys, including the Rampant Rabbit, hopes its tweaks to the speculum will encourage women to take the life-saving test.
The speculum traditionally allows nurses and doctors taking Pap smears to see the cervix during screening.
83 percent of cervical cancer deaths could be prevented by screening, but many women say they find the test uncomfortable to undergo.
Posting photos of the bright pink instrument on Instagram, the company compared the instrument to the sex toys it sells, saying, “This product was made with your needs in mind.
‘The Life Saving One has a smooth shaft with an adjustable tip and is no bigger than our Rampant Rabbits!’
Ann Summers revealed this week that it has redesigned the speculum, the medical instrument used to look inside the cervix during cancer screening, to make it a more pleasant experience for women when getting a Pap smear
The campaign is supported by the famous doctor Dr. Frankie and influencer Sarah Jayne Dunn.
It was revealed this week that another version of the speculum was being renamed, again in an effort to encourage more women to get screened regularly.
Following a campaign backed by TV presenter Davina McCall, the ‘virgin speculum’, the smallest version of the instrument used to look inside the vagina and cervix, will now simply be known as an ‘extra small speculum’ for NHS staff.
Dating back to the mid-1800s, the “archaic” term was coined by speculum inventor James Marion Sims, who believed a smaller instrument was suitable for unmarried women.
He argued that a larger device could damage tissue at the opening of the vagina, which was erroneously believed to break the first time a woman has sex.
But campaigners have claimed the name infers that using the device is a sexual act.
The redesigned speculum has “a smooth shaft with an adjustable tip and is no bigger than our Rampant Rabbits,” says the British firm, which has traditionally sold sex toys and lingerie
Women’s charity Lady Garden Foundation has seen documents from the NHS Supply Chain – the body that manages health products – directing suppliers to change the name of the product, which was praised by women’s health advocate McCall.
She says she is ‘overjoyed’ with the campaign’s success, adding: ‘I am constantly working to ensure that women can have confidence in gynecological treatment. A cervical examination should never be sexualised.’
Jenny Halpern Prince, of the Lady Garden Foundation, argues that clinicians using the term virgin speculum could deter women from attending the screenings.
Television host Davina McCall supported the campaign to rename the virgin speculum
Following a campaign by the Lady Garden Foundation, a women’s health charity, the NHS simply rebranded the virgin speculum as ‘extra small speculum’.
She says it encourages “false narrative,” implying the tests are painful and sexual, putting up “potentially deadly barriers.”
Earlier this year, NHS figures revealed that the number of women missing cervical cancer screening tests is at its highest level in a decade. Cervical exams are offered to all women between the ages of 25 and 64, but fewer than seven in 10 of those who qualify have had the test by 2022.
Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women under 25, with around 3,000 diagnoses each year in the UK.
However, the number of cases has dropped significantly since 2008 thanks to the introduction of the HPV vaccine in teens.