Dr. Peter McKenna:

There are two sets of figures I could use to answer that. One is that the number of women who have been dying of cervical cancer has been falling since the programme started. It is very satisfactory to report that because that is ultimately the goal of the screening programme. In that regard, it has been successful. The other issue is that of the 221 women who managed to make it into the audit, the majority had very early-stage disease. They had micro invasive disease and those women are doing very well. Flawed as it may have been, the audit has provided some reassuring data that the majority of women are alive and well. That is not in any way to minimise the impact of those who have died or, indeed, the impact of those who are suffering from complications of treatment, but the majority are alive and well due to the fact that the programme identified them at an early stage.