Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

CervicalCheck Screening Programme Update: Discussion

Mr. Damien McCallion:

We would. That is one of the things we have tried to manage through the contracts, and we are trying to mitigate it further in respect of looking at alternative capacity, primarily to address the backlog and, obviously, trying to accelerate the HPV project so we can get to that point through the tender. There is always a risk but we are trying to mitigate it as well as we can, monitor it, work with the laboratories and address the issues that members have raised here in parallel with that. We have tried to strengthen the resource in the programme with the appointment of a senior person as the laboratory quality assurance lead for the programme and to bring in more resource and expertise to help do that because, clearly, many things are happening in the laboratory space.