Little confidence to be gained from this latest sorry chapter

THE CervicalCheck scandal is entering a new chapter – or so we thought. After the scathing Scally review just last month, there was hope that lessons were being learned. But the latest revelations about a major investigation of the quality of laboratory screening delivered for women who use CervicalCheck has again exposed serious weaknesses.

Much depends on this major examination, which is under way.

It will be key to finding out if there are failures in the testing that is outsourced to private labs in the United States and Dublin.

It is being conducted by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

It is important to get as many eligible women as possible who developed cervical cancer to agree to take part.

However, as the Irish Independent reveals, some of the letters containing the consent of women to use their slides ended up in the Department of Agriculture.

This sloppiness is difficult to forgive – and is distressing for women who want to maintain their privacy about their medical history. It also increases the risk that women will not become involved.

There was also the added discovery that some women contacted were unaware they had ever had a diagnosis of cancer.

These women would have undergone screening and been referred for further examination.

They had micro-invasive cancer which is rarely invasive and can be treated by a local excision procedure.

There are echoes here of the Scally review, which revealed how some doctors giving women their test audits downplayed their importance.

CervicalCheck’s own guidelines call for this diagnosis to be discussed and suggests the potential need for yearly follow-up tests.

Did this happen in the case of all these women? This scandal has exposed how patients are treated by some doctors.