Cervical Check Daily Report 25 May 2018

The HSE Serious Incident Management Team continues to work to respond to the failings revealed by the CervicalCheck audit. This report is being provided daily to outline and provide a progress update on the response to this evolving situation. 

1.    Contact with women directly affected

Hospitals have been working since the SIMT was established to contact all the women affected and to discuss the audit with them.

The HSE Community Health Organisations have contacted the majority of the women affected to offer a range of supports to assist them. This process is being coordinated with the relevant acute hospitals. The process will continue to be rolled out to all women directly affected.

The package of services being made available was announced by Government on Friday May 11th and will include medical cards, counselling and psychology supports, reimbursement of medicines and treatments, childcare and travel costs and arrangements are being put in place as a matter of urgency.

2.    Women diagnosed with cancer but not notified to CervicalCheck

The HSE is working with the National Cancer Registry of Ireland and the Department of Health to identify any other women who had cervical cancer during this time, who may also have had a Cervical Check test.

HSE will conclude the matching process with the National Cancer Registry in the next week. We will then agree a communication process with the International Clinical Expert Review Panel for those women identified by the National Cancer Registry matching process. These will be the women who have been identified by the National Cancer Registry as having cervical cancer and who have had cytology with the national screening service.

The International Clinical Expert Review Panel is being established as part of the Government’s investigation into the national cervical cancer screening programme (CervicalCheck).  The terms of reference for this Expert Review Panel are currently under consideration by the Department of Health.

The main purpose of the panel is to provide women with facts and independent expert assessment of those facts.  The review will be carried out under the auspices of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists with expert input from the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology.

The scoping enquiry into the cervical check screening program, lead by Dr Gabriel Scally, has commenced its work. Further information can be found at www.scallyreview.ie

3.    Contact from women concerned about the CervicalCheck audit

Over the past number of weeks women in Ireland have been understandably worried following the failures in communication about this audit. The information line established on April 28th continues to operate and women are being offered the facility to receive a call-back from a member of our clinical staff.

To date, 11,293 calls have been returned to women, and every effort will continue to be made to ensure that contact is made as quickly as possible with all those who have requested a call back. While the volume of incoming calls has fallen, there are additional call backs required to fully close out some earlier calls. Some more complex cases require more time to be spent on a call in order to adequately address the queries raised by the women affected. In addition CervicalCheck is responding to call back requests made via email or social media. We have teams working in Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Dublin, as well as Public Health specialists and hospitals and right across the country, making contact with all of the women who have requested a call back.

A number of women have requested copies of personal data and CervicalCheck are in the process of gathering this information in order to release these records to those women as soon as possible.

4.    Public Information - Advice and Support for Women

Every effort is being made to provide information and advice to women who may be concerned. Information and advice for women is being updated on cervicalcheck.ie and is being provided on a range of channels as described below.

The clinical advice is that women who have had normal test results in the past can continue to participate in the cervical screening.

Women should be directed to cervicalcheck.ie in the first instance for information and advice on what to do.

 
5.    Health Professional Information - Advice and Support for Women

The clinical advice is that women who have had normal test results in the past can continue to participate in the cervical screening programme according to their normal schedule, and women with a history of normal test results are advised to read the information on cervicalcheck.ie and then make contact with their GP if they remain concerned. CervicalCheck has issued an update to GPs and smear-takers participating in the programme, and to colposcopy clinics and cancer centres nationwide.

Information about the CervicalCheck audit, and advice for anyone concerned, is on cervicalcheck.ie.