Ms Fiona Murphy:

In the same way Dr. Russell outlined for cervical screening, we have restarted. It will not be possible to double up on screening so we do not have a timetable for catch-up. We have a timetable for restarting. We have approximately 70% capacity in our screening units. We hope that with the introduction of a vaccine and the reduction in requirements for restrictions in 2021, we will be able to increase capacity further. We have had funding allocated to us to increase our number of mobile and static units. We have been lucky in our staff response as a number of staff have agreed to take on additional hours and provide additional capacity. For example, in the west, where until now we have maybe only had screening three days per week, we were up to five and even six days in recent weeks. We will do our utmost to maximise capacity but we will not, as Dr. Russell said, double our capacity. It will not be possible.

To offer some reassurance, Dr. Russell said that in cervical cancer a delay of three to six months does not worsen one's outcome and we know the same applies for other cancers. In bowel cancer, for instance, evidence published this month on a European study of over 200,000 patients with a positive fecal immunochemical test, FIT, showed that a delay of up to nine months did not have a negative impact on their outcome. This is because in screening we tend to look for slower progressing diseases------