Women will be invited for more frequent smear tests after health chiefs have stepped up the cervical screening programme to target those most at risk.

As of September 1, women throughout Cumbria and Lancashire will be invited to have their first smear test at the age of 25 and then every three years until the age of 50. After that they will be invited every five years.

At the moment, women in the Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust area are given their first screening at 20, and then at three-yearly intervals until 34, and then every five years until the age of 65.

Health chiefs, who are acting on national guidance, have said the changes will help target women most at risk from cervical cancer and will regulate the frequency of screening across the area which until now has differed between primary care trusts.

PCT director of public health Dr Frank Atherton welcomed the new changes.

"Overall, the new guidance increases the minimum number of screening invitations that a woman will receive during her lifetime, and this is welcome," he said.

He explained the changes would target women thought to be most at risk.

"Deaths in younger women are uncommon," he said. "Only one in every 70 women who die of cervical cancer is under the age of 30. In women under 25, most changes do not become cancerous, so treatment would be unneccesary and possibly harmful. Also it is fairly uncommon for older women who have previously had regular normal tests to develop those early signs of cancer.

"For these reasons, the guidance now recommends that we don't begin to invite women until they reach the age of 25, and that we reduce the frequency when women reach the age of 50."

The trust confirmed women who have already been given a date for their next test will still be eligible for their smear on that date.