NHS cancer screening scandal ‘is even worse than feared’
500 more women put at risk
A FURTHER 500 women have been put at risk of developing cancer following a cervical screening blunder, it has emerged.
Health chiefs admitted hundreds more records were being checked after the women were mistakenly removed from smear test appointment lists.
It comes on top of 434 women who were identified as having been excluded from regular check-ups because of a coding ‘error’ after undergoing hysterectomies.
One affected woman has died and an undisclosed number have since been diagnosed with cancer.
Public Health Minister Maree Todd yesterday told BBC Scotland: ‘I’m afraid we may well be looking at higher numbers.’
She sparked fury when she also admitted that the NHS had been
‘Cynical abuse of power’
aware of the error in March. Opposition leaders demanded to know why it had take so long for the public to be informed.
Scottish Labour health spokesman Jackie Baillie said: ‘These women were failed for decades. The least they deserve is to have been made aware of the risk facing them as soon as it came to light.
‘It is astounding to learn that, throughout this, Nicola Sturgeon was aware of this scandal and did not say a word. It is hard to see this as anything other than playing politics with people’s health.’
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton claimed that the error had been ‘deliberately hidden from the public’ until after last month’s Scottish parliament election.
He added: ‘It is a cynical abuse of power to only disclose this serious adverse event months later and on the afternoon when parliament breaks up for the summer.
‘It is an insult to the women who were failed by the errors in this screening programme.’
The initial group of 434 women underwent partial hysterectomies after 1997 and 434 WOMEN IN DEADLY CANCER SCREENING BLUNDER were mistakenly told they did not need to be screened.
But the records of at least 500 women who had procedures before 1997 still need to be checked.
The records of every woman who has been excluded from screening because of a full hysterectomy – around 200,000 – are also being checked.
Most hysterectomies involve the removal of the cervix and so there is no further need for cervical cancer screening.
However, sometimes an operation is performed where part or all of the cervix is left in place and those women should remain on the screening programme if they are within the eligible age range.
The errors included women who had gone into hospital for a total hysterectomy – removal of both the womb and cervix – but this had then been changed to a partial removal. The NHS coding recorded the intended surgery, rather than what actually occurred. Further errors occurred when information was communicated to GPs.
Miss Todd said the Scottish Government ‘fully expected’ that the 200,000 women whose records were being looked at had been correctly excluded. The notes should be examined by the end of July.
The minister said that the
Government had first been alerted to the error in March and the delay was due to the ‘laborious process’ of going through records to identify women before the blunder was announced.
All the women affected were contacted by letter on Tuesday, she said. A free helpline has also been set up by the Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust charity in partnership with the NHS on 0808 802 8000.
The error originally came to light during a routine audit of the deceased woman’s health records. All health boards were then examined and 434 other women were found to have been wrongly excluded from screening.
Miss Todd said that a ‘small number’ of these patients had subsequently developed cervical cancer.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Annie Wells described the delay in contacting women as ‘simply not good enough’.
‘Simply not good enough’