Dr. Karin Denton:

We have not seen any published outcome of the pilot that was done over a number of years prior to implementation of the CervicalCheck programme. I do not believe it included any look back of women who developed cervical cancer but there is some comparative information from England, where a similar audit has been carried out. We included the outcomes from that, which have been published, in the report. That shows a degree of lack of concurrence which, superficially at any rate, looks broadly in line with what has been reported or what we think the CervicalCheck audit shows, although we do not have an equivalent report with which we can compare it.

In terms of whether things have changed, I am sure that they have and we did see evidence to that effect. If one looks at the reporting rates for abnormalities over the years, one can see step changes which must indicate that there was some change in policy which occurred over a short period, for example, with inadequate reporting. There is evidence of constant intervention, evolution and improvement, as one would expect but we do not have specific information about look-back findings in individual women's samples. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists review may be helpful in that respect