Dr. Gabriel Scally:

I thank Senator Burke for a varied group of questions. Dr. Denton and I will try to provide some answers between us. The Senator asked whether the colposcopists were aware. I believe they had some awareness that a review was going on. The laboratories received notifications, particularly when it began to become more structured. There is a clear breakdown in the report of what happened when the cases were being re-examined.

Although the bulk of the cases where a review was needed concerned cytopathology, there were also cases where there were possible failings in colposcopy or in the administrative system. Therefore the colposcopists would have known something was going on in that regard.

The major problem was that their connection and engagement with CervicalCheck was very poor. I logically expected that there would have been routine meetings. These were very important people in the whole process of cervical screening and looking after women whose smears were abnormal. I would have expected that there would have been regular meetings. After all, the health service was funding those clinicians to work for CervicalCheck as part of the screening programme. There was not that engagement with them and they certainly were not involved in the construction of the review and the audit process. Perhaps more tellingly, we did not see any clear evidence of cytopathologists involved in this and yet cytology was at the heart of what they were trying to review.

Does Dr. Denton wish to say anything about the colposcopists?