Failures in HNZ’s cervical screening programme

Press Statement from Genspect New Zealand 11 August 2026

Health New Zealand’s cervical screening monitoring system is under scrutiny after almost one million screening notifications were not triggered by the system.

Investigations show multiple systemic failures across all aspects of the project despite the intent to work towards significantly better coverage for the women who have historically been underserved. The report’s 38 recommendations cover clinical safety, governance, notifications, monitoring, workforce capability, equity, and system functionality. What was launched was termed the “minimum viable product” but in operation this was shown to be a highly optimistic assessment. “News reports to date have been coy about one of the underlying reasons for the failure,” says Jan Rivers, spokesperson for Genspect NZ.

“In 2024 Te Whatu Ora issued guidance that the primary data point collected for whether a person is male or female must not be their sex, but their gender identity. The report on the cervical screening failures makes it clear that a significant part of the problem is the misidentification of a person’s sex in the database.”

The report says, “the register utilises NHI information which may mis-identify transgender and non-binary individuals with a cervix” and “transgender and non-binary individuals with a cervix are not invited if their gender is recorded as male in the NHI, as there is no NHI field to identify their sex at birth.” The recommendations propose correcting this.

“The failure to record sex, and instead to record gender identity in the National Health Index, is a major failing and a dangerous example of ideological capture by our health system,” says Rivers. “That news services cannot accurately describe this failing is also a problem.”

Genspect NZ believes the NHI policy is an example of ideological thinking about sex and gender taking precedence in our public service and, when obvious problems emerge, compromising accurate reporting of the problem.

“Good quality health data collection would provide completely separate fields for sex and gender identity,” says Rivers, “and the field for gender identity would be optional as not everyone believes they have a gender identity.”

Jan Rivers

Genspect NZ spokesperson

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