Dr. Colm Henry:

In my then role as clinical adviser I was informed by the clinical director of a hospital group of his concerns over who was responsible for disclosure of this information, so I immediately consulted with the women and infants health programme and contacted the medical director of cervical screening asking her opinion and her response to the concerns raised by the clinical director in the hospital group. The reply I received from the cervical screening programme was that it was the responsibility of the caring clinicians to provide this information. There was an exchange of correspondence and meetings on advice I received from other relevant clinical leads which culminated in a meeting between the lead colposcopists, that is the clinicians, and the medical director of the screening programme on 1 September, three months later - the first correspondence I received was on 11 July. I received correspondence the following week from the medical director of the screening programme saying that they had changed the policy regarding communication and that further meetings were planned with the colposcopists so there would be consensus as to how they were going to communicate with patients, who was going to take responsibility and when this would happen.