Ireland’s cervical cancer screening system was “doomed to fail,” inquiry finds

The system for cervical cancer screening in Ireland was “doomed to fail at some point” and had problems that were “redolent of a whole system failure,” an independent inquiry has concluded.1

The scoping review by Gabriel Scully was set up in the wake of a crisis in the country’s cervical screening programme, CervicalCheck, when it emerged that women who developed cancer had not been told of earlier smear tests which were wrongly interpreted.

Scally, president of the epidemiology and public health section of the Royal Society of Medicine, was appointed to carry out the review by the minister for health, Simon …