Cervical Screening Scandal - Ladies with Letters Renew Call for a Statutory Public Inquiry
Photo: Press Association
On Thursday July 3, 2025, our clients Ladies with Letters attended a Health Committee meeting at Parliament Buildings, Stormont.
At the meeting, the Health Committee received a briefing on the Cytology Screening Review – an investigation into the quality and accuracy of cervical smear tests conducted between 2008 – 2021 by Southern Health and Social Care Trust - from the Department of Health (DOH), Public Health Agency (PHA), Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (BHSCT) and Southern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT).
Whilst our clients were privileged to attend this meeting, after listening to the questions put to the Southern Health & Social Care Trust and the Public Health Agency by the Health Committee Members, Ladies with Letters feel as if they are no further forward in their quest for answers and accountability.
Following the meeting Director, Enda McGarrity on behalf of Ladies with Letters said that the failures that have occurred have been on an unprecedented scale. They have occurred over many years and across at least two Trusts and the results have been devastating for thousands of women.
The attitude of SHSCT and the PHA has been that while some level of wrongdoing is accepted, they are confident that all issues have been identified and are being properly investigated. This is at odds with the lived experience of the Ladies with Letters - a group which now regrettably includes bereaved families, women who are dealing with avoidable cancers and women who remain uncertain about their status and what the future holds for them.
The DOH is presently dealing with these issues by commissioning a suite of independent reports, many of which are authored by the very bodies who hold responsibility for the failures that they are investigating.
If the DOH is really serious about identifying the facts of what has happened and ensuring that no one has to experience what the Ladies with Letters have, desktop reports and defensive attitudes will not suffice.
A full understanding of the facts and a restoration of public confidence can only be gained by hearing testimony from those who have been directly involved, from the biomedical scientists reviewing the smears tests, to the leadership of the SHSCT and the PHA who were supposed to be overseeing the cervical screening programme.
Most importantly, the stories of those who have suffered most as a result of these failures must be told, and those stories must inform the changes which follow. Ladies with Letters has engaged with the Minister for Health on these issues for over a year. They have waited long enough, and their patience is wearing thin.
Ladies with Letters have one simple request - the Minister should without further delay establish a statutory public inquiry with full powers to compel evidence, witnesses and which places those who have suffered most at the heart of its work.