SCALLY REVIEW TO CHECK PROGRESS

PUBLIC health expert Dr Gabriel Scally will carry out a ‘crucial’ review of Cervical Check in the New Year to ensure recommendations he made in his report into the scandal have been carried out.

The Cervical Check steering committee last month agreed that Dr Scally would be contacted to complete a review of the implementation of recommendations he made in September 2018. The Irish Mail on Sunday understands almost 170 of the actions needed to implement the recommendations made in this initial report are completed.

Stephen Teap, a patient advocate and member of the Cervical Check steering committee, whose wife Irene died after she was given an incorrect smear result, said the review is necessary to ensure the actions had been implemented properly.

Mr Teap told the MoS: ‘It’s time for the teacher to come back in to check the homework.’

Dr Scally was appointed by the Department of Health to carry out a scoping inquiry into the programme. Published in September 2018 it was scathing in its findings. Dr Scally said the system was ‘doomed to fail at some point’.

He also found that it was impossible to isolate problems to certain areas of the programme, instead calling it a ‘whole system failure’.

Dr Scally carried out a supplementary report in June 2019 in which he called for 170 actions to be completed on foot of 58 recommendations he had made.

Mr Teap said: ‘They [Department of Health] have contacted him to do the review so it will happen in 2022. We just need clarity and confirmation on when it will start.’

When asked about the 2022 Scally review, a department spokeswoman said ‘164 out of 170 actions have been completed, with all of the remaining six actions in progress’.