Expert warned against cancer test outsourcing

The outgoing director general of the HSE was warned more than a decade ago that outsourcing the analysis of cervical cancer screening results could lead to the type of crisis which has now engulfed the system.

Dr David Gibbons, who was then chair of the cytology/histology group within the quality assurance committee of the National Cervical Screening Programme, said he brought his concerns directly to Tony O’Brien, who was then CEO of the National Cancer Screening Service.

Dr Gibbons told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme he had been involved with the programme between 2002 and 2006 and that at one stage a backlog of screenings was outsourced to America.