The blunder that saw thousands of women not receive smear test invites or results 'undermines' public confidence in screening programmes, the health minister has said.
Steve Brine slammed the 'unacceptable' error - made by private firm Capita, which is paid £330million to provide admin services for the NHS in England.
His comments come after it was announced this morning there will be a 'major overhaul' of NHS cancer screening programmes, following the latest failure.
Professor Sir Mike Richards has been drafted in to conduct a top-to-bottom review of how they are undertaken, which may prompt changes to 'currently outsourced services'.
It was only revealed yesterday that nearly 50,000 women did not receive cervical cancer screening invites, reminders or test results – despite Capita knowing since August.
The scandal came just months after it emerged 450,000 women were not invited for breast cancer screening, with dozens believed to have died as a result.
Capita's error was only made public yesterday by the British Medical Association, which wrote to the head of NHS England calling for the firm to be stripped of its contract.
Doctors warned 'lives are at risk' because of the blunder, which Capita – branded 'shambolic' for its error - has accepted full responsibility for and apologised.
Professor Sir Mike Richards, the former chief inspector of hospitals for the Care Quality Commission, will lead a 'major overhaul' of the NHS's cervical, breast and bowel cancer screening services which have been blighted by controversy over the past year
In his statement, Mr Brine confirmed the error was caused by files from Capita's call and recall operations team not being correctly sent and uploaded to its print and despatch services.
He added: 'Incidents of this type are not only unacceptable in terms of the impact they have on the women affected, but they also undermine public confidence in our screening programmes as a whole.'
About 43,200 women did not receive either an invitation or reminder letter to attend their screening appointment between January and June this year.
A further 4,500 were not sent the results of the smear tests they had attended between January and October.
Around 180 of them had abnormal results, putting them at higher risk of cervical cancer, and a further 252 women needed an early repeat screening test.
However, Capita and Mr Brine have denied the women faced any risk of cervical cancer because they would have been told by their GP or contacted directly by a colposcopy clinic.
Mr Brine confirmed no women have suffered harm because of the failure, however, he added every woman's screening record is being double checked.
Capita has written to all the women who did not receive invitation or reminder letters and to those who did not get their normal result letter.
The GPs of women affected have also been informed so they can offer support to their patients.
Mr Brine added: 'The NHS cervical cancer screening programme saves an estimated 5,000 lives a year by detecting abnormalities of the cervix early and referring women for effective treatment.
'Our priority is patient safety and we will be assembling a clinical board that will provide oversight for the cervical screening call and recall service.
'This will ensure that every part of the process has an in-depth review.'
The NHS sends women letters every three years after they turn 25 inviting them for a cervical screening test.
This falls to every five years for women aged 50 to 64. Those over 65 are only offered a test if they have recently had abnormal test results.
Around five million women in the UK are invited for smear tests every year. Around 850 die each year from cervical cancer in the UK.
Around one in 20 women who have a smear test have an abnormal result, but only one in 2,000 have cervical cancer, according to The British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology.
In a follow-up statement today, Capita said: 'The risk to women of this incident is low and there is no current evidence of harm.
'But Capita nevertheless apologises to both the NHS and to the women whose correspondence was delayed.'
Capita yesterday blamed human error for the failure and said disciplinary measures would be taken because the correct process was not correctly followed.
The firm yesterday said the individuals responsible did not immediately escalate the issue to senior management upon discovery of the problem.
It was revealed today that people working at Capita knew about the mistake for two months before they told the NHS, GP magazine Pulse reported.
Some 48,500 women in England did not receive letters inviting them or reminding them to attend cervical screening tests, which can pick up on early warnings of cancer (stock image)
'It took me three weeks to find out I was okay'
Kelly Swingler is one of the thousands of women who didn't receive their NHS cervical screening results
Kelly Swingler is one of the thousands of women who didn't receive their NHS cervical screening results.
The mother-of-two diligently attends cervical smears once every two years and regularly encourages her sister and friends to have them as well.
But when Miss Swingler, from Peterborough, did not receive her results after her most recent test in May, she became concerned.
She said: 'The results normally come back in three to five days. It took me three weeks to get through to my doctor who said everything was okay.'
Mrs Swingler has had smear tests come back with abnormal results before, so she believes it is essential to keep up to date with screenings.
The 38-year-old businesswoman added: 'I go every time I am reminded to.
'Because the results are usually so quick to come back, I did start to get concerned. There are many women that are not going to their screenings. But the ones that do go don't hear anything – that is something you just don't need.'
Mrs Swingler said of Capita, the contract company responsible for the blunder: 'They have a duty of care and responsibility. If that were any other company, if that were my company, we wouldn't still be in business. They are being paid a lot of money.'
Capita said an auditing team has been appointed to investigate the incident and more stringent checks put in place to try and stop it happening again. It added a 'senior executive' responsible for the contact had already left.
Officials today announced Sir Mike will lead an investigation to advise NHS England and Public Health England on how they can improve cancer screening programmes and 'save more lives'.
Sir Mike is the Department of Health's former cancer director. He also was the former chief inspector of hospitals for the Care Quality Commission.
He said: 'There is no doubt that the screening programmes in England save thousands of lives every year.
'However, as part of implementing the NHS's long-term plan, we want to make certain they are as effective as possible.
'This review provides the opportunity to look at recent advances in technology and innovative approaches to selecting people for screening, ensuring the NHS screening programme can go from strength to strength and save more lives.'
Sir Mike's review is expected to be complete by summer 2019 and may recommend 'changes to currently outsourced provision'.
The review will look at the provision of cervical, breast and bowel screening, which are all given regularly in the UK.
Smear tests pick up on abnormal cells on the cervix which, if caught early, can be removed in order to try and prevent cervical cancer (stock)
The BMA yesterday announced it had wrote to NHS England about its 'extreme concern' that so many women did not get the letters because of the 'gross' error by Capita.
'This is an incredibly serious situation,' said the BMA's Dr Richard Vautrey, who added some women will now be 'extremely anxious' because of Capita's 'incompetence'.
He added it was 'appalling that patients may now be at risk' of cervical cancer and said hundreds of women are likely to be 'extremely anxious' over the news.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) yesterday said women shouldn't panic but the NHS must answer for its failings.
The body urged the health service to 'seriously review' its contract with Capita, suggesting pressure will grow on NHS bosses to cut ties with the company.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, RCGP chair, said: 'This error has put patients at risk, and it will undoubtedly cause women more anxiety.
'It is vital everything is done as a matter of urgency to rectify the situation, and ensure all affected women are informed – particularly those who have not received their test results.
'We urge women not to panic and to await further information - we understand that NHS England are already working to contact anyone who has been affected.'
This is not the first time Capita has made an error while working for the NHS this year.
The company won a seven-year contract in 2015 to run a back-office services contract for the NHS, in which it was required to crack down on 'ghost patients'.
These are patients who don't exist in reality but are registered at GP surgeries and, since Capita took over, the number of them has risen from three million to 3.6million.
Health leaders are furious with the company's failure to meet the high standard expected.
'Since it took responsibility for GP back room functions three years ago, Capita's running of these services has been nothing short of shambolic,' added Dr Vautrey.
Capita, whose chairman is Sir Ian Powell (pictured), had nearly £1billion wiped off its value in January as shares plummeted to a 15-year low
'And after repeated warnings from the BMA and government, this is now clear evidence that its failings have put patient safety – and possibly lives – at risk.
'It is ultimately NHS England that bears overall responsibility and it must now take this service back in-house.
'As the body which commissioned Capita to take on this work, despite clear warning signs that it was not up to the job, NHS England must shoulder the blame for this dreadful situation; you cannot outsource responsibility.'
Dr Stokes-Lampard added: 'This is the second blunder of its kind this year, and we all need answers about why this has happened and assurance that it will not happen again.
'We will be asking NHS England to urgently and seriously review its contract with Capita – this is the latest in a long line of serious errors made by the company, and it is clear to us that they have not properly understood the scope or complexity of the work they have bid to do to support primary care.'
An NHS England spokesperson said: 'Every woman's case is being reviewed, but there is no current evidence that this incident has led to harm to the women involved, and our priority now is to ensure that anyone affected by this incident is contacted, and knows how to get checked if they are due a cervical screen.'
It comes after the NHS was engulfed in a similar scandal in May, which saw 450,000 women miss life-saving breast cancer screening scans because of a 'colossal' IT failure.
The women, aged between 68 and 71, were never sent letters offering them routine breast screening because of an IT error lasting from 2005 to 2018.
And then-Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said up to 270 of them developed breast cancer which shortened their lives.
The chief of Breast Cancer Now, Baroness Delyth Morgan said at the time: 'It is beyond belief that this major mistake has been sustained for more than a decade.'
The glitch wasn't even discovered until Oxford University researchers were setting up breast screenings as part of a study and found some women's were automatically cancelled because of their age.
Mr Hunt first blamed a 'computer algorithm failure' but apologised, saying: 'For many years oversight of our screening programme has not been good enough.'
Women are invited for routine breast screening on the NHS every three years between the ages of 50 and 70.
It comes after the NHS was engulfed in a similar scandal in May, which saw 450,000 women denied life-saving breast cancer screening scans because of a 'colossal' IT failure
Linkhienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/11/15/nhs-england-announces-a-major-overhaul-of-cancer-screening-programmes/
Main photo article The blunder that saw thousands of women not receive smear test invites or results ‘undermines’ public confidence in screening programmes, the health minister has said.
Steve Brine slammed the ‘unacceptable’ error – made by private firm Capita, which is paid...
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Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
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