The number of people dying from one of Ireland’s most common cancers could be cut in half as a direct result of a groundbreaking early screening test.

The acting head of the HSE has been overpaid more than €160,000 since 2006.

Cervical smears are still being sent for screening to a firm in the US six years after the HSE said the outsourcing would be short term.

The Department of Health is to spend up to €60,000 in a bid to identify efficiencies in a value-for-money review on the State’s rollout of Breastcheck.

The Board of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has appointed Tony O’Brien as Chief Executive with immediate effect.

A PRIVATE consultancy firm is set to be parachuted into the health service in an attempt to solve the country’s hospital trolley crisis.

A GROUP of medical experts from Britain will put Ennis Hospital under the microscope to ensure it meets all the best clinical standards for the introduction of a new life-saving colorectal cancer screening unit.

MORE than 300,000 women have had cervical smear tests screened in a 12-month review period, with one in eight scans showing an abnormality.

More than 300,000 free cervical cancer checks were carried out between September 2009 and August 2010. Out of these, 145 women were diagnosed with the disease.

ONLY 60% of men and women are likely to participate in the national colorectal screening programme when it is launched next year.

ONE hundred women were diagnosed with cervical cancer during the first year of CervicalCheck – the national cervical screening programme.

A WOMEN’S health clinic is concerned that a crucial high uptake of the cervical cancer vaccine may be difficult to maintain when it is rolled out nationwide in September.

PUBLIC health doctors have called for mandatory rehabilitation for anyone found guilty of drink driving.

UP TO 30,000 schoolgirls will be vaccinated free of charge against cervical cancer later this year following a dramatic reversal of Government policy.

The Government has announced the roll-out of a screening programme to detect one of the country's biggest cancer killers.

IRELAND’s new cancer centres are coming under pressure because of a huge increase in the number of women routinely referred by GPs, the director of the National Cancer Control Programme, Prof Tom Keane, revealed yesterday.

GLOBAL online payments company PayPal has announced the creation of 100 jobs at its European centre in Dublin.

POORER women are more likely to have abnormal smear test results than those who are better off, new figures reveal.

NO extra funding will be made available for a national screening programme for the country’s second most deadly form of cancer, it has been confirmed.

A screening programme that will save hundreds of lives by diagnosing the early stages of bowel cancer should be rolled out across the country, experts said today.

Health Minister Mary says she is committed to introducing a national colorectal screening programme in Ireland as soon as possible.

The National Cancer Screening Service (NCSS) is recommending the roll-out of a national colorectal screening programme for men and women in Ireland.

THE roll-out of Breast- Check, the national breast screening programme, is under threat in counties Clare, Leitrim and Donegal because of a shortage of radiographers and a ban on recruitment.

THE slashing of 41 State agencies will be a “first installment” in a long term plan of reducing so-called quangos, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said last night.

THE National Cancer Screening Service (NCSS) confirmed that it has signed an initial two-year contract with Quest Diagnostics in the US to provide laboratory testing services for the national cervical screening programme.

THE row over the Government’s decision to select a US company to process Ireland’s cervical smear tests deepened last night after a Fine Gael TD claimed cancer could go undetected in up to 2,000 women.

A ROW has broken out over the awarding of preferred bidder status for laboratory testing of cervical smears to a private US company.

ANY innovation that reduces the risk posed by cancer is welcome, most especially if it is long overdue.

IRISH women are being promised more accurate and better-quality test results following the introduction by the national breast screening programme of a fully digitalised X-ray service.

DOCTORS have lost confidence and trust in the management of the health service, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has claimed.

WOMEN in the mid-west will have to wait another two years to avail of national BreastCheck appointments, Labour Health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan TD claimed yesterday.

A WOMAN with a family history of cervical cancer was forced to wait seven months for the result of a smear test, even though the findings were sitting in Holles Street Hospital for five months.

IRELAND is the only country in western Europe where deaths from cervical cancer continue to increase.