About 17,000 women in Northern Ireland who had smear tests between 2008 and 2021 are to have their results rechecked as part of a review of cervical screening in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.
Letters have been sent to all women whose records are to be reviewed and are expected to begin arriving from Tuesday.
Some women will be invited to attend a further smear test, the Trust said on Monday, but in the majority of cases the previous smear test will be re-examined for abnormalities to check the correct result was given.
It said the review was being carried out as a “precautionary measure”.
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The Southern Trust’s medical director, Dr Stephen Austin, apologised and said the Trust was “very conscious of the anxiety this report may cause to women”.
The Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland said women in other Trust areas were not affected.
“An issue was identified in part of the screening process in the Southern Trust lab, but there are no similar concerns regarding other labs carrying out this work as part of the cervical screening programme, and processes are in place to monitor this,” a spokeswoman said.
The review follows concerns that were raised by senior laboratory staff in July 2022, who notified the Trust’s management team that they had “concerns about performance in some steps of their laboratory’s screening system”.
The Trust – which covers the Newry, Armagh, Craigavon and Dungannon areas – subsequently commissioned the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) to undertake an independent assessment of its cervical screening services from 1 January 2008 and October 2021.
Its highly critical report, published on Monday, found that while the majority of negative results issued by the laboratory were correct, a “significant number” of women were likely to have received negative results which would have been identified as abnormal in other laboratories.”
The report said that in the laboratory there had been “significantly poor performance over many years by more than two cytology staff.
“Mechanisms for identifying this were flawed but when it was identified actions taken were inadequate,” it said.
However, it noted that “improved performance monitoring has now been implemented but required careful ongoing focus”.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health said the report’s findings were “clearly unacceptable” and it was “closely monitoring the actions being taken at Trust and regional level in response to the RCPath recommendations”.
The cervical screening programme looks for abnormal changes in cells that line the cervix which, without treatment, could develop into cancer.
Women in Northern Ireland are called for a smear test every three years between the ages of 25-49, and every five years from 50-64.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK and Ireland which does not have a primary HPV screening system in full operation.
The Department said on Monday that the full introduction of primary HPV testing was on course for December, and this would also address the current backlog in reporting smear test results.
More than 1.9m smear tests have been carried out in Northern Ireland since April 2008, including 400,000 in the Southern Trust.
The Trust said women who do not receive a letter have not been identified as needing review and “there is no need for women to contact their GP to make an appointment for a smear test unless they have recently received an invitation to attend for one as part of the routine screening programme”.
A Freephone helpline has been set up which can be contacted on 0800 9520255 Monday to Friday, 9.00am – 6.30pm and from 10.00am – 4.00pm on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 October 2023.
Additional reporting – PA.
