Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that the following actions have been taken to date in response to the controversy over cervical screening tests.
REDRESS SCHEME
- A redress scheme will be established for any woman whose cancer was missed and should have detected beyond normal error, and for women where there was a breach of duty to inform them of the audit results.
STATUARY INQUIRY
- A statuary inquiry will be established. The government had already announced a HIQA inquiry, but now appears to be moving towards a commission of investigation. A decision will be taken later today on this in consultation with opposition health spokespeople. The Taoiseach said there are limitations to both forms of inquiry.
EXPERT REVIEW
- A team of international experts will carry out a clinical review to look again at all the smears of the women diagnosed with cancer in the past ten years. This is between 2000-3000 women. That will be led by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology who will try to identify the genuine false negatives and those that should have been reported differently. This review to be completed by the end of May.
BETTER SMEAR TEST
- A new more accurate smear test is being introduced by the end of this year. This will reduce the number of false negatives.
CHANGES IN CERVICALCHECK
- The clinical director of CervicalCheck stepped down some days ago - today it was announced that the senior official in charge of the service, the director of the service, is no longer in charge.
REPEAT SMEAR TESTS
- Anyone concerned about an inaccurate smear test result and visit their GP to discuss the situation and the State will meet the consultation and the repeat smear test.
