Cervical cancer: Eight women develop cancer ‘after smear misread’

The highly critical Royal College of Pathology report found a “persistent failure ” to tackle underperformance by some cervical screening staff.

It said policies for dealing with poor performance were below standard and the screening laboratory was not sustainable.

Action taken by management was inadequate over many years, said the college.

For all of the review period 2008 – 2021, Northern Ireland used cytology-based screening which involves making a slide from the smear test sample and looking at it under a microscope.

Cytology screening only detects about three in four abnormalities.

In December 2023, Northern Ireland caught up with the rest of the UK when it introduced primary HPV screening which tests for the presence of a human papillomavirus (HPV) which is responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancer.

This is a more sensitive screening method and is expected to find nine out of 10 abnormalities.

The findings will now undergo an independent expert review, with work on this to commence imminently by Allan Wilson, a senior biomedical scientist at NHS Lanarkshire. He has more than 45 years experience of working on the cervical screening programme in Scotland.

Based on those findings, the health minister will decide whether to launch a public inquiry.