Partial rescreening was carried out on 9633 cervical smears reported as negative by standard screening. Each slide was ‘step‐screened’ at normal speed for 30 s. Thirteen false negative smears were detected by this method. No false negatives were revealed by conventionally rescreening 10% of the same study group. the sensitivity of the method was assessed by ‘step‐screening’ 100 known positive smears. of this group 92 were detected. the results indicate that partial rescreening is a sensitive method of quality assurance and should replace conventional 10% proportional rescreening, which is