Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton constituency, has today raised serious concerns with the Scottish Government regarding the terrible mishandling of the cervical screening programme.

The Scottish Government announced that about 430 women who had partial hysterectomies were wrongly told they did not need to be screened. A small number of these women later developed cervical cancer and one has since died.

Jackie Baillie MSP said:

“This an extremely serious situation and our thoughts are with the women who have been affected. The truth is we do not yet know the full scale of this error but it could impact on many more women than the 500 excluded from the screening programme since 1997.

“It is, of course, critical that women are contacted urgently and offered information and support.

“Can I ask the Minister why was this not picked up by audits of the screening programme in the past?

“Can I also ask the Minister when all the women affected will not just be identified, but also seen by a clinician?

“Will there be additional specialist clinics in every health board area?

“And, of course, you will be aware of the concerns about capacity. There is a significant backlog in screening of something like 180,000 tests; delayed because of the pandemic and delays now of six months or even more for those who have been screened and need treatment.

“So can the Minister tell me, what additional resources will be provided urgently to cope with the serious situation, as well as catching up with the backlog?”