Mr. Damien McCallion:

I will outline the total numbers first. Some 10,666 women had requested callbacks from a clinician as of yesterday. The number of women who have yet to receive one is now 3,562. As to when this will be closed out, I note that at the moment there has not been a significant drop in call volume. Effectively we have to plan on the basis of two things. One is that we will have to plan to continue with this for a certain period, until people have a certain level of satisfaction. Then the call volume may drop. Second, I note that the CervicalCheck helpline was always there, but it had a different purpose. It was intended to facilitate and advise. My view is that in light of this we will have to strengthen it beyond the current week so that it provides greater assurance to women. Moreover, the people manning the line will have to be clinical staff.

To answer the Deputy's question about how long it will take, I think that will be contingent on the duration of the issue. If people call us then we have an obligation to get back to them, and we will continue to do that. That is challenging. I described it earlier. We need clinical staff, whom we are trying to pull out of services and hospitals. Those women who have more complex needs, in the sense that they have a history of colposcopy or cancer, need to talk to an oncology or a gynaecology nurse as well as medical support. We will have to monitor that week by week. I cannot give a date by which we will have dealt with all the queries, because the situation is changing each day. As I say, while there have been some dips in the number of outstanding queries, it has typically come back up again.

In the long term, I have mentioned that I do believe we will need to strengthen the helpline to provide support to people over the next six, nine or 12 months as we hopefully turn the corner, give women assurance on the screening service and deal with the many questions, some of which have been captured over the last week or two. As I have mentioned, it was largely an administrative line.