Dr. Stephanie O'Keeffe:

While I might leave coming back with a clinical response to Dr. Peter McKenna or Dr. Tony Holohan, I know that Professor Gráinne Flannelly established the CervicalCheck programme. It was established in 2008 and 2010, it was decided that it would be audited. I understand that the programme was governed through an independent statutory agency at the outset and then, during the period of austerity, was merged into the HSE, into the national cancer control programme. In 2010, it started the audit. When the open disclosure guidelines were initially published, the service reflected on the information that it had and decided that this information would be of benefit for patients. It is of benefit for patients anyway because those involved in the service are trying to improve all elements of the care pathway, from the letters that they issue if there is no one at the address or to general practitioners, GPs. There are many parts of the cervical screening process that could fail. The audit looks at all of those processes. It is of huge benefit to patients in identifying any problems. It is important to note that with this particular audit, the cervical screening service has stated that there are no systemic issues of note and that the programme is working well. The open disclosure element, with regard to making a decision that the information on individual patients' reviews is of benefit to patients, was the right decision to make in 2010. It will be interesting to finally hear Dr. Scally's findings on this with regard to the journey. It has clearly been a process that has been evolving. Whether those decision-making points many years ago were the right decisions, that is, to continue with the process approach rather than making finite decisions that we would stop all the cases that we reviewed up to that point and only do open disclosure prospectively, the service committed to ensuring, in the decision that it made, that the information it had would benefit all patients who had been diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer and had a history of screening.