Doctors involved with the BreastCheck service have expressed strong concern that spiralling legal costs could lead to the screening programme for breast cancer being closed down. She said she had been working for 30 years in breast cancer screening and up to now would never have had more than one medico-legal case a year involving solicitors. Her great concern was that litigation would cost so much that BreastCheck would be told to stop its screening service, she said, and that all resources would be diverted to the symptomatic breast cancer service. She told the committee that BreastCheck had identified over 11,500 breast cancers since the programme began in 2000. He said his concern was that the events in the past month (regarding the cervical cancer screening programme) had the potential “to force the country to stop screening”.

Source: The Irish Times May 24, 2018 00:00 UTC