In 2016, the Department of Health was advised by the HSE of plans to disclose retrospective clinical audit to patients and of the potential for future adverse publicity in this regard. The Department viewed the introduction of open disclosure of clinical audit as a positive development and did not consider it to be necessary to escalate it to the Minister.
Had the subsequent widespread non-disclosure been escalated by CervicalCheck within the HSE and raised with the Department, this would have triggered a major concern and a much different attitude. However, based upon the information it had at the time, my Department viewed the initiative taken to communicate audit findings to women in a positive light.
In April 2018, as soon as the Department became aware that there was an issue with disclosure of those audit findings, they immediately escalated the issue and worked with the HSE to put in place a serious incident management team.