The Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland has announced that it will be conducting a review of approximately 17,000 women’s records following concerns about performance in its cervical screening services. The Trust commissioned an independent assessment by the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath Consulting) to investigate these concerns, which were raised by senior laboratory staff in July 2022.
The RCPath Risk Assessment Report, published recently, revealed that while most negative results issued by the laboratory were accurate, a significant number of women may have received negative screening results that would have been flagged as potentially abnormal by other laboratories. As a precautionary measure, the Southern Trust will be reviewing the records of these women to ensure that the correct information was provided.
