Dr. Stephanie O'Keeffe:

The crucial date is the October 2016 briefing and what came after that because October 2016 was the last full briefing I would have received. Deputy Kelly and the Chairman are quite right in that there would have been 14 months of one-to-one meetings plus a monthly senior management team meeting and a monthly performance oversight meeting that fed into multiple points of view, MpoV, which discussed risk. There were a range of risk meetings in between. I have to tell the committee honestly that the CervicalCheck clinical audit was on the management reports from the National Screening Service, NSS, during that time telling me that the audit process was going well and that continuous improvements were being made. I have the specific details but from about May, within that there would have been one case going to the State Claims Agency. Later on in the month, maybe about September or October, three cases went to the State Claims Agency. Clearly, I must reflect on whether there was anything else I could have done to become more aware of this but I was reassured that it was handling it well. I had confidence in the CervicalCheck programme that it was happening.