Ms Marie Culliton:

Our understanding is that the results reported from laboratory B are what are called programme smears. Programme smears are the same whether they go to laboratory A, B or C. The Coombe also does smears from patients who are in colposcopy. They are the women who are already reported as having positive smears.

This is why when we look at the statistics it is really important to know what we are actually looking at, especially in the case of the Coombe. Are we looking at them with the positive colposcopy in or out? That will clearly change the percentage of high-grade smears reported by that particular laboratory.

In different places they reported differently. My colleague, Mr. Gerard O'Mahony, can go into that with the Deputy in greater detail. If we look specifically at what has been reported by the investigation team from CervicalCheck, it looked specifically at 1,482 cases and said that in 442 of those one or more elements of their care required review. Of those, 209 had a variation in their cytology report and, of those, 175 should have had their treatment escalated. If we take that 175, it is 12% of 1,482 and 39.6% of those whose cytology was reviewed and it was found, based on that review, that there should be an escalation. I do not know where those cases came from because the report on 1,482 cases does not tell me in what laboratories or in what years the original slides were done so we need more information but I find it a little worrying.