Dr. Colm Henry:

This is a very important communication message for us, and I know that the Deputy, among others, has been to the fore in highlighting the difference between a screening programme and a diagnostic programme. Screening is for a population of healthy people who are persuaded to undergo a test that might pick up a problem. When a person has symptoms it is not relevant to the screening programme. We have three cancer screening programmes, namely, breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening, and in each of those people who develop symptoms, whether rectal bleeding or vaginal bleeding, they enter a clinical pathway that brings them to an urgent referral to a relevant clinician and bypasses everything else. Screening would be a distraction from that.