Updated 15:05

Around 6,000 women are expected to be called for a repeat cervical smear test, the HSE has confirmed.

It comes after an external lab advised CervicalCheck of a problem in relation to standard HPV tests.

Quest Laboratories informed the HSE that it had been examining the tests outside of the recommended time frame for clearest results. 

HPV testing is an extra form of screening carried out on samples where low-grade abnormalities have been detected by the lab.

The lab first informed the National Screening Programme of the issue in November 2018. It said it had been carrying out the tests in this way since it was first introduced three years ago.

CervicalCheck has said an expert clinical team has been set up to establish the facts with the lab and review the situation.

All women impacted are expected to be informed by the end of next week.

"Little risk"

Dr Peter McKenna, Clinical Director of the HSE's Women and Infants Health Programme, said: "Our clinical review has assured us that this issue poses little risk to women’s health. 

"Evidence shows that HPV tests of this kind are effective outside the manufacturer’s recommended timeframe, but as a precaution, we will likely be asking some women to attend their GP for a repeat smear test to confirm the result and to provide them with reassurance."

He added: "Based on our current assessment of the information provided by Quest, we expect that up to 6,000 women will likely be called for a repeat smear test. These tests will be processed by the laboratory as a priority."

Campaigner Stephen Teap, whose wife Irene died from cervical cancer said Dr McKenna's reassurances are "a relief" - however, he warned that the delay in informing women is unacceptable.

"What I can never understand is how long do these validation processes have to take?" he asked.

"When it comes to actually validating the amount of people that are involved in these why does it take from November to the end of this week to actually confirm the numbers that are involved in this?

"That is what seems to be delaying this and it is not good enough."

Backlog

Separately the HSE has confirmed that around 1,000 women have had to take repeat test because their samples expired before they could be examined.

It said the samples went out of date as a result of backlogs in the system.

It comes after concerns about backlogs in the system were raised in the Dáil yesterday.

The HSE said an extra 84,000 women came forward for screening last year, "due to understandable concerns about cervical screening" in the wake of the CervicalCheck controversy.

Nearly 350,000 screening tests were submitted in total in 2018 - up from 250,000 in previous years.

Around 82,000 of these are still being processed by labs.

While results of the tests are usually available within 2-4 weeks, that time-frame has now expanded to 22 weeks.

"Lack of political honesty"

Following the confirmation, the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin warned that the Government knew about the delays months ago - and failed to answer questions on the matter.

"I think there has been a woeful lack of political honesty here," he said.

"I think these issues are serious; they should be managed far more pro-actively by the minister," he said.

"When Parliamentary questions were asked - and I asked one on the 15th and I asked specific questions - they were not answered," he said.

The HSE said the delays have been "reported over the last months in the media, and details have been available on the HSE’s CervicalCheck website and provided to women contacting our programme."

Dáil statement

CervicalCheck has said it's "making every effort to improve the situation."

Deputy Martin yesterday called on the Minister for Health Simon Harris to make a statement before the Dáil on why he offered free re-checks without putting any extra resources in place to handle them.

He warned that the backlog was impacting on the quality of the screening service as a whole.

People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith called the situation a "debacle."

She argued: "[It] shows flaws not only in the cervical retest system but deep flaws in the reliance on private labs under the continued contracting out of CervicalCheck itself."

Additional reporting Michael Staines