Mr. Stephen Teap:

That question probably comes from something I said previously about all these reviews that are ongoing. They seem to focus on just the slides but not the programme as a whole. After I lost my wife, many of the people who have lost people in this made contact with me. This is obviously a burning question for me.

People - researchers and so on - say to me the real measure of whether a screening programme is working is that we should see a downward trend in mortality. From what I have been given and what I have here, which I could share with the committee, I think the statistics show that out of the UK, France, Finland, the Nordic region and Ireland, Ireland is the only country that does not show a downward trend in mortality. If our screening programme is successful, why has our mortality rate stayed static over recent years? We hear about instances at early stages being picked up, but people are still dying seemingly at the same rate as they were years ago. That question needs to be looked at and it has not been to date. All the statistics from the current mortality incidence data seem to stop in 2013, and RCOG's reporting of it stops at 2015. It is 2019. Why are we not up to date with the statistics, given the nature of and the ongoing concerns with the screening programme?