Dr. Irene Regan:

I will start off by commenting on judging the quality metrics and standards. The data in the public domain come from the 2014-16 audits. They are part of the serious incident management team report. They state that the positive predictive value is within international standards for all the laboratories. The report lays out the three laboratories: laboratories A, B and C. There is a variation in the reporting on the CervicalCheck quality assurance document or annual report. CervicalCheck reports total numbers. There seems to be variation in the way they are reported and the percentages reported. We have looked at that and we see there is variation and it needs to be clarified.

The annual report from CervicalCheck states that the figures include colposcopy. That could allow for the difference in figures. The serious incident management team report does not seem to include colposcopy. There is variation in reporting and that needs to be highlighted.

That is where we are on it. We know ourselves about the quality in our laboratories. As I said before, medical scientists examining a smear are required to reach individual pick-up or detection rates of 95% or greater for high-grade abnormalities. If we are talking about smears with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, CIN, grade 2 or 3, as in the case of these women, we expect a detection rate for one independent medical scientist 95% of the time. My colleague, Mr. O'Mahony, will elaborate on this. We have two independent medical scientists reviewing a smear so the figure will be far higher.

We are talking about whatever is on a smear. We are not talking about the whole screening process. We are talking about if there are positive cells or abnormal cells on a smear. The figure for each medical scientist reviewing it by him or herself is 95% or greater. In reality, it is far better than that because we have two independent medical scientists or trained cytologists reviewing each smear. The figures are sent back to CervicalCheck quarterly. Medical scientists have to achieve this rate. The figure is greater than 90% for all abnormalities. We know that-----