The purpose of this study was to see if the National Health Service Cervical Screening Programme's guidelines were appropriate when they recommended that mildly dyskaryotic smears were repeated before referral for colposcopy. We identified all those with a mildly dyskaryotic smear, and followed them over 5 years, to compare those that had colposcopy and those that did not. In total, 269 women were followed and 35% of these only had the one mild smear. Of those whose smear returned to normal after the initial mild smear, 84% remained normal over the 5-year period. Of those whose smear did not return to normal, i.e. those that required a colposcopy, 74% returned to normal after the colposcopy.