Health Secretary defends Scottish Government handling of cervical cancer screening programme failures
Humza Yousaf has described claims ministers hid details of the errors due to an upcoming election as “absolutely disgraceful”
The Health Secretary has rejected suggestions ministers deliberately hid details of failures in the Scottish cervical cancer screening programme.
MSPs were told on Thursday about errors which led to more than 400 women being wrongly told they didn’t need checked.
A small number later developed the disease and one woman died.
It also emerged ministers were aware of the issue in March with opposition parties now demanding an explanation as to why they kept quiet until last week.
But Humza Yousaf says it would have caused anxiety in thousands of women if they had gone public before knowing the full extent of the problem: “If we had made the announcement in March and all those records hadn’t been reviewed, tens of thousands of women who have had a hysterectomy since 1997 will have been anxious, worried, concerned whether they were the ones who were potentially affected.”
He believes the Scottish Government took the right approach: “What we actually did was get the specialist teams together to work through and review all of the records post 1997, they came to ministers with that advice and then, of course, sent those letters to the affected women.
"So we were able to stand up in Parliament and say we are very sorry for what happened and here’s the extend of what has happened.”
Calls for debate during summer recess
The Health Secretary has also described suggestions the news wasn’t made public in March due to the upcoming Holyrood election as “absolutely disgraceful”.
There are now demands for a debate to be held during the summer recess with Scottish Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton calling for greater scrutiny: “Women have been failed. Thousands will be reeling at this news. They deserved to know about the risk to their health months ago. With parliament being recalled in a fortnight to take stock of the coronavirus situation, we must also have a chance to hold the Health Secretary to account over these decisions.”
The Public Health Minister is to meet with opposition parties during the summer recess before updating Holyrood in September.