WE’VE all been aware for some time that Matt Hancock doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, but it’s news that he doesn’t know a cervix from a vagina. The man whose idea of social distancing is sidling up to a colleague and patting him on the back has committed yet another gaffe by telling women they can do their own smear tests at home.

“Over 31,000 women will be offered kits to carry out smear tests in the privacy and convenience of their own homes in a trial,” he tweeted. “Cervical screening is life-saving, so this is a great step forward.”

This was confusing news to women who have had such tests, with one replying “How is it even possible to do your own smear test?! Who has arms long enough?!” It was a good question, and the SNP’s health spokeswoman Philippa Whitford had the answer. The English Health Secretary had got himself in a muddle, she explained, confusing smears to detect cancerous or pre-cancerous cells with simple swabs to detect the Human Papilloma Virus, which causes 99.7% of cervical cancers. If the results from one of the latter tests comes back positive, the woman is invited to attend for a smear.

In a sentence few would ever expect to read, the Vagina Museum weighed in, urging the Health Secretary to correct his “incorrect and misleading” statement. He didn’t bother, because what do these vagina people know about women’s health? Matt Hancock is the expert!

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at his incompetence, given the gravity of the topic, but fortunately “Chuckles” Hancock never has to choose between the two as his programmers only installed one “emotion” setting.

Medical testing is, of course, a very serious matter. Across the UK fewer than three-quarters of women aged 25 to 64 who are invited for cervical cancer screening take up the offer, and the trialling of HPV swab testing is part of a push to reach those who are being missed.

There are many reasons why women do not attend, including embarrassment and fear (of the procedure itself and of the possible results), although the Women’s Equality Party has argued these factors are overstated and that many women struggle to access smears due to the difficulty of getting GP appointments along with cutbacks to specialist sexual health clinics.

READ MORE: 'Misleading and off-putting': SNP MP blasts Matt Hancock for smear test blunder

The trial to which Hancock clumsily refers is, however, a positive step forward. According to Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, only about 13% of those who carry out the swab tests will have to attend their GP for a follow-up smear, which is great news for the other 87% and also in terms of freeing up appointment slots and NHS resources.

A similar trial of self-testing for HPV has been under way in Dumfries and Galloway since last summer and it couldn’t come at a better time, with the Covid-19 pandemic adding to the list of reasons why women don’t attend

for their smears and a growing backlog of missed opportunities to check for signs of cervical cancer. But telling people a that straightforward swab – which is 99% foolproof, takes a few minutes and does not involve making contact with the cervix – is a “smear test” risks undermining this good work and confusing those who may already be confused and anxious about self-administering anything at all.

While a self-test “smear” might be appealing on privacy grounds, I imagine few women who understand what’s actually involved in this procedure would rush to sign up for what they’d expect to be a self-addressed speculum.

You would think the pandemic – and especially the current vaccination programme, which depends on large numbers of people being well-informed and accepting invitations from the NHS – would have made Matt Hancock conscious of the need for clear and accurate communication on health matters. But no, when it comes to women’s health it’s fine to leave people puzzling about how many extra arm bones, well-positioned lamps and magnifying mirrors they might need to recreate an experience that requires them to lie back and relax.

In Hancock’s defence, he’s no doubt too far busy to read an endless stream of tweets from women about vaginas. He’s got more important things to do right now, such as finally getting around to publishing details of £3 billion worth of PPE contracts out of the £15bn spent by October of last year.

These have been illegally kept from us, as by law they should have been published within 30 days of the contracts being awarded. Is it a coincidence that details of how

much money the Tories funnelled to their pals under the cover of the pandemic have been held back until the UK Government had good news stories to share about vaccination progress and the route out of lockdown?

Hancock and his Cabinet colleagues might well consider that a “smear”. I would call it a perfectly valid question.