17 Sep 2019, 14:03
Officials from the Department of Health, HSE, CervicalCheck and the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB) are before the Joint Committee on Health tomorrow, Wednesday, 18 September, to deliver an update on the CervicalCheck screening programme.
The meeting will take place in Leinster House, Committee Room 3 from 9a.m.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, chairman of the Joint Committee on Health, Dr Michael Harty said: “We will be looking for an update on progress being made in implementing the recommendations made in Dr Gabriel Scally’s two reports into the CervicalCheck controversy.
“We will also be examining the current position on screening and questioning the extent to which the screening tests are now outsourced to laboratories in the USA and the extent to which this poses an ongoing risk to the programme. We will also want to see what progress is being made in the introduction of HPV primary screen and the plans the HSE has to have extra colposcopy services that will be needed as part of this HPVprogramme.
In regard to the issue of accreditation and quality assurance of laboratories, the Scally supplementary report raised concerns about the use of laboratories that were not on approved lists.
Dr Harty added: “Women using CervicalCheck and their families need to know that that the labs smear tests are screened in are quality assured and appropriately accredited. Our Committee welcomes this opportunity to meet with INAB representatives and find out how, it operates its accreditation system and what standards or criteria it uses to provide quality assurance on the quality of work carried out in pathology labs.”