Dr. Patrick Walker:

Of course. They are very important as individuals. That is my point - that what we were doing was writing an individual letter to an individual woman about her individual circumstances. Those women who came under the partial report category do not form a homogeneous group. There were cases where a report was unavailable because it could not be shipped over. Some of those reports later became available, as we know. There were cases where the slides were missing and could not be located by the laboratories to be sent over. I would have to check the data but I think I am right in saying in three cases designated as partial, it was because the report was "inadequate" or smear-reporting category P1. This was not a homogeneous group where one could say that all the cases could be put in one basket. However, I take the Deputy's point.

With regard to the concordant issue, there may be a slight misunderstanding. Some women had multiple slides in the review. So, a woman could have an unavailable or missing slide and we would never make any comment on whether that slide was in agreement or disagreement. However, if she had another slide that reviewed as showing high-grade changes, that smear was concordant. In writing the individual letter to the woman, those terms were explained in the narrative, but there would not be a circumstance that an unavailable or missing slide was categorised as concordant or discordant. A letter would outline information in that regard if a concordant slide had been reported and was part of the patient's entire history. I understand the force of the Deputy's concern-----