National Audit Office finds more than 150,000 untested samples in laboratories
More than 150,000 untested cervical screening samples were discovered in laboratories across England, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that changes to testing arrangements led to a backlog. This has since been reduced, but the size of the backlog suggests that hundreds of thousands of women have had to wait to find out if they needed treatment.
The disclosure comes in a highly critical report that has also identified some of Britain’s worst performing areas for screening programmes for cervical, bowel and breast cancer as well as for abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Full story on the Guardian, 1 February 2019