HSE’s late release of CervicalCheck records to inquiry criticised

Women and family members affected by the CervicalCheck cancer screening controversy have criticised the Health Service Executive’s late release of documents to the Government’s scoping inquiry.

Dr Gabriel Scally, the UK healthcare veteran carrying out the inquiry, said the HSE handed over documents requested – more than 4,000 records – only last week as he was due to produce his progress report.

He found it “disappointing and unclear” why records originally prepared in electronic form, including “very recent documents”, were not handed over in that format, making it impossible to search them.

His final report has been delayed from the end of this month until the end of the summer.

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Dr Scally is investigating how US laboratories used by CervicalCheck missed cancers or reported false negatives in smear tests and why the programme failed to tell women about clinical audits of tests after they were diagnosed with cervical cancer, showing them to be incorrect and yielding a different result.

Cork man Stephen Teap, who discovered last month that his late wife Irene's audit showed two incorrect tests, said he was "extremely disappointed" the inquiry was being treated the same way as victims and the Public Accounts Committee, with the "drip-feed of information and paper-bombing at the very last minute".

“Burying people in documentation, whether it is relevant or not, seems to be the HSE’s first priority when they are in protective mode, which is completely unacceptable,” he said.

Mr Teap was “worried about the lack of control in the HSE providing information”.

‘Cop on’

Emma Mhic Mhathúna (37), the terminally ill Kerry mother of five who also learned of an audit last month showing incorrect smear tests, said the HSE needed to “cop on” and provide greater co-operation.

“When people frustrate investigations it comes across as they are hiding something,” she said.

Cian O’Carroll, Ms Mhic Mhathúna’s solicitor, described the manner in which the HSE handed over records to the Scally inquiry as “clearly an act of obstruction”.

Labour TD Alan Kelly, the party's health spokesman, said he had "grave concerns" that the inquiry was taking too long as it has really only addressed one of its 10 terms of reference: examining the information provided by CervicalCheck.

“The sad reality is that in some cases women don’t have time and can’t afford this government to be missing deadlines,” he said.

Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on health, Stephen Donnelly, said Dr Scally’s progress report showed that “the State is continuing to fail women”. It was “disappointing” that the scoping inquiry would not meet its end-of-June deadline but the report made it clear that the “tardiness of the State is a key factor in this”, he said.

People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith said the report suggested State agencies have been "dragging their heels on their much-vaunted claims for 'transparency' " and this was a "deliberate strategy" by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Health Simon Harris to "kick this issue down the road as far as they can."

Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall said there needed to be “clear instruction” from the Government to the HSE and CervicalCheck that “full co-operation is to be given.”