Senior health service personnel who received briefings from the CervicalCheck screening programme were told women would receive information from their GPs about audit findings, the HSE has said. Mr Connaghan said a dispute between CervicalCheck and doctors over who should tell patients about their audit findings had not been escalated up the line to more senior health service mangement. “Consequently, neither the former director general nor the Department of Health were briefed by the national director health and wellbeing on these issues. “The intent of the CervicalCheck programme was that all treating clinicians would be given individual audit findings for their patients so that these could be communicated to the women concerned, in line with guidelines at that time,” he said. Mr Connaghan described as “appropriate and necessary” steps envisaged in one of the memos for CervicalCheck to prepare for dealing with negative media coverage arising from the audit findings.

Source: The Irish Times May 14, 2018 23:19 UTC