Patients whose cancer screenings paused during lockdown will be seen by end of year - HSE

Screening services reopened starting with Cervical Check in July and Bowel Screen in August and they are planning to re-open Breast Check in September/October.

The HSE's chief clinical officer, Dr Colm Henry has said that he is confident that people who had their cancer screening cancelled because of the pause during lockdown will be seen by the end of October or November this year.

There are serious and significant prevention control measures that affect each and every element of the care pathway in each screening programme and affects them differently, he told RTÉ radio’s News at One.

“Screening was paused, as were other non-essential services, at the end of March when we saw that huge surge in Covid cases, when we saw hospital systems being overwhelmed.

"That pause was reversed in May - so it was not just a case of going back to what it was like pre-Covid, seeing as we are bringing healthy people in from the street to subject them to a test and further investigation we need to make sure that doesn't foster an environment for transmission of Covid-19.” 

Dr Henry said that screening services reopened starting with Cervical Check in July and Bowel Screen in August and they are planning to re-open Breast Check in September/October.

“But each of those are different in terms of the chain that each part of the screening pathway, where the test is done, what the test involves and what other types of tests or investigations the screening programme is dependant upon,” he explained.

“Each programme is different, in the case of Cervical Check we are prioritising those people already on recall - it's now the HPV screening test which is considerably more sensitive than previous screening tests and we're hopeful that in itself will produce a more efficient screening programme.

“So we're confident that we will have picked up on those people whose appointment was paused during that lockdown by the end of October, November this year.

"Anybody whose screening test was delayed during this year we will have caught up by the spring of next year.” 

Dr Henry said he wanted to reassure anyone attending a screening programme, that it's not just the individual screening test that matters, “it's the sequence of attendance, over the lifetime of your participation in the screening programme that matters.

“We hope to pick up changes and those changes may be predictive of cancer in which case people warrant further investigation.

"But those changes in the case of cervical cancer which grows quite slowly over up to a 10 year period can be picked up not just in one screening interval but at a second screening interval.” 

Dr Henry also wanted to remind people of another important point, that screening programmes are for healthy people.

People with symptoms of breast cancer, or bowel cancer or cervical cancer, any symptom, that doesn't rely on a screening programme, you must go to your medical practitioner or your GP and seek specialist help.

Dr Henry also said that cancer programmes were not paused during lockdown.

“We kept rapid access clinics going, one of the things that caused us considerable concern was the marked drop off of attendances at rapid access clinics so clearly the impact of Covid was not just in terms of how we were organising our health care service for people's individual psychology and whether or not they felt safe and secure coming to outpatients services.

"Our cancer services are there, of course they’ve been reconfigured to correspond to a Covid environment in that there's a slower throughput, there's infection prevention and control.

"In some cases people have to wear PPE and other protective equipment and in other cases people have to get tested before they go into hospital so everything has changed.” 

He acknowledged that in some cases the pathway was slower, but he was confident that as the screening service was rebuilt there would not be any “bottlenecks” in the pathway of treatment for patients.