Dr. Lorraine Doherty:

The Chairman asked a question about what was happening with HPV testing now and what would then happen in the future. On current HPV testing, we are a cytology-based primary screening programme. If a woman goes for a smear, she has cytology. She only has a HPV test if there is some abnormality on her cytology that warrants further investigation. Where there was additional HPV testing, we have called it co-testing, which arose in the context of managing the backlog that developed in recent months, which we have now resolved. At that time, we allowed our service providers to co-test the cytology samples for HPV to identify those which may be at a slightly higher risk and which should proceed to cytology immediately. That happened in MedLab Pathology Limited and in Quest Diagnostics for a time. MedLab Pathology Limited is no longer contracted to work with us and Quest Diagnostics has now resolved its backlog issues so we are back to being primarily a cytology based programme with reflex HPV where there is a need. When we move to HPV primary screening we will turn that around where the first test will be a HPV test and those who have a positive HPV test will then proceed to have a cytology test.