Ninewells Hospital's colposcopy service has won a national award for its work to increase the number of women attending cervical screening.

Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust's Cervical Screening Awards recognise excellence and innovation across the UK.

The Tayside team scooped the top prize for holding drop-in smear sessions, information stalls in hospitals and local shopping centres and using social media to raise awareness of the importance of cervical screening.

The campaign led to the service securing Scottish Government funding to run further drop-in smear clinics at hospitals in areas with higher incidence of cervical cancer, seeing more than 150 women who were overdue or who had never had a smear.

The clinics also allowed the team to engage with more hard-to-reach groups of women and encourage them to attend their GP for regular screening.

Lead colposcopist Dr Kalpana Ragupathy said: "NHS Tayside has the highest incidence of cervical cancer within Scotland and screening attendance is around 75% meaning one in four women are not taking up the invite for a smear.

"We realise that some women have particular difficulties with examination but it is so important that these women come for their smear tests and follow up.

"It is so sad to see women having life changing treatment for a cancer that could have been prevented by a five minute smear test and a half hour visit to the clinic."