People with a cervix

You are, I believe mistaken.
IMO the problem was not disclosing known information to the women involved.

At the development stage the option was to build local inhouse screening provision or contract out. They ( "CervicalCheck" ) opted for contracts and selected some US labs, irish lab and UK(?) lab.

If an international standard had been applied the lab contracts would have had standardised protocol, process, procedures and control systems across all the lab providers.

Thats different from the international expected outcome ie. expected fail rate on correctly risk assessing marginally not-normal but not-cancer cells in standardised testing.

At least one US lab applied US standards to the Irish slides and did not flag/ refer samples which showed not-normal but not cancer cells to additional secondary screening. In the US this would not have been a such a problem as screening was around a 2 year cycle.
However in Ireland it was on a 5 year cycle.

For the women involved human error and poor controls led to test failure. The controls were the responsibility of CervicalCheck. The controls should be implemented to aim to eliminate or at least reduce human error. The early checks missed the start of the cancer and women were not called back for a retest or put on a more frequent testing pathway.

CervicalCheck was the centralised data processor for hospital data their remit includes looking at the outliers. Women tested clear and then having turned up in the cervical cancer treatment pathways.

Upon investigation CervicalCheck audit teams discovered problems with their suppliers.

A look back provided a list of women who were screened and mistested and developed cancer.
Post audit CervicalCheck opted not to inform the women directly but pushed that out to their GPs. GPs had no obligation to disclose the notification to the women (or if dead their family)

When sued CervicalCheck took the "standard" legal position that CervicalCheck would not accept liability or admit errors.

https://www.thejournal.ie/what-is-the-cervicalcheck-controversy-5358081-Feb2021/

The scandal was not that the system did not have a 100% detection rate. If that had been substantive issue in the individual cases, the general public/ women would have been concerned; accepting it as a terrible personal tragedy as mistakes happen; but on a personal level their risk of medical error was low.

The scandal was that CervicalCheck had decided not to inform the women involved of their findings of fact. And that there was a letter on a womans medical file which she may or may not have been informed of. And the non-disclosure clause in the out of court settlement was designed to protect the "Institution". The Abortion debate (since the 8th) was in full swing again so thats a womens righ to be informed and choose medical pathways.

Overall the scandal was ignoring the women at the center of the cervical screening which undermined other womens trust in the service.

And while all this was going on CervicalCheck was busy writing policy to provide for men with a cervix who had no legal right to have their cervix screened by the Irish Public Health system.

And it reflects an underlying anti-woman bias to pretend that a womens bodies are just like mens as man is the standard benchmark is a single sex female only medical field.

Thank you for this Firstofall. As you say, all screening programmes inevitably miss a percentage of early cancers, and tragically some of those cases result in death. That's not a failure, it's certainly not a scandal, but facts don't make such dramatic headlines.

I thought at the time that it was shameful the way the press etc set up a narrative about a 'CervicalCheck scandal'. It didn't do the women involved any favours, because it promoted misunderstanding of the nature of screening, it wrongly suggested that there was a legal case for malpractice, and it demonised medical professionals who hadn't done anything wrong.

It's one of those versions of history that make better headlines than the facts, like the '800 babies dumped in a septic tank' narrative. Once the sensationalist half- or quarter-truths are established as fact, it's very difficult to challenge them.

"Who is it for?

• Healthcare professionals who care for women, trans men and non-binary people registered female at birth with menopause-associated symptoms
• Women, trans men, and non-binary people registered female at birth with menopause-associated symptoms, their families or carers, and the public."

If they want to be specific, why on earth not simply write 'people registered female at birth'? Why the additional reference to gender?

Oh there will be quite a few....
•The very mentally unwell
• The AGP doing it for sexual gratification
•The querelous who just want to be able to complain and punish.

NICE’s guidelines on menopause refer to people rather than women (except for legacy links to pages with ‘women’ in the title but I don’t doubt they are scheduled for demolition).

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng23

🤔 I wonder how many men that believe they’ve (miraculously) changed sex, will be making appointments for cervical screening. 😂

Screening for women is sufficient.

If women who identify as men think they’ve actually changed sex there’s bigger problems than words on an invite. Several posters have mentioned exclusion and access to healthcare.

If someone not using made up words makes people feel excluded tough shit.

'non binary'

If you can't understand why the concept of having to classify your personality according to sexist tropes isn't sexist, you really, really aren't a feminist.

Because they are incredibly sexist and can't think of 'woman' as anything but a set of stereotypes, and can't recognised that this is screening for a sex specific cancer, and so refers to sex and not personality?

I think we should start referering to men, and transwomen, as people with a penis.

Erasing transwomen who don't have cervixes how? Excluding them from cervical cancer screenings? Or were you refering to something else?

See, this is the crux of the matter, common sense is not engaged. Why the bloody hell do we need a panel of people to make decisions on the wording of a letter, it really is simple :- "Women's cervical screening programme" Easy, done, simples. No need for anything else. No need to pay a fortune.

Well India W for one.

Anyone want to suggest what wording the Irish health service should have used to replace the word woman [my bolding] in the evidence given about the cancer screening failure?

@AnSolas
Apologies, as this is off the point I know, but cervical cancer screening in itself didn’t fail any more in Ireland than it did anywhere else in the world. By which I mean Ireland was performing to international standards in terms of screening, but screening wasn’t, and isn’t, a system that will pick up all cases unfortunately.
That’s the same everywhere.

The actual problem in Ireland was that the limitations of the program weren’t communicated properly to women in advance and communication to women was extremely poor post audit. This led to huge misunderstandings regarding the aim and ability of the screening service and the press had a field day. The role of the press and the way some journalists misrepresented the situation was reprehensible in fact, and caused much confusion. The government weren’t much better.

This comes up from time to time on MN so just wanted to clarify that because I think some still misunderstand what actually happened. Off the point I know, sorry.

All of these arguments are tired- most of which also sound like they were made up by the Daily Mail. I think I have made my point so won’t waste more time arguing but I would suggest getting out there and speaking to a transgender individual and actually listening to what they have to say. It might be enlightening to discover that they’re just normal people.

If all else fails just trot out the tired old daily mail/right wing trope. 🙄

I DID speak to trans people. A close friend transitioning opened up my eyes to the misogyny and toxicity of the movement.

A third of my son's friendship group identity as trans. That opened my eyes up to the social contagion aspect among teenagers.

That should have been a response to the person complaining about women not being given a say about how they are referred to

'Homosexual acceptance is about being comfortable with who you are, transgender belief is about trying to be who you are not.'
So well said, Ingenieur! This is the perfect answer to conflating trans with gay.

But it is referring to women as women. It is referring to other people, eg trans men, who have a cervix, differently.

Even if you think that trans men is a mental health issue, is it not still important that they still get the medical care they may need by being able to access a cervical screening test?

Yes, but transmen know they are biologically female. It would take an avanced level of stubborn foolishness to base your choices about which medical care and tests to have on your 'identity' rather than your actual body.

It absolutely is a fad. It's a shallow linguistic movement with no deeper substance than pretending words mean different things, then pretending that whenever other people used those words in the past they actually meant them the way that was just invented.

It's nothing like being gay. Homosexual acceptance is about being comfortable with who you are, transgender belief is about trying to be who you are not.

Good luck telling someone who is non binary that they’re actually a she/her/woman/female.

But they know they are.

I won’t answer disrespectful questions about my loved ones. If you’d like to rephrase i’d be happy to talk about it.

I wont be rephrasing it. I don’t use the term trans woman.

Why do you think my question was disrespectful?

They factually are men who identify as women. They used to call themselves transvestites then transsexuals.

I recall the demands of them here on mumsnet to be called transwomen. I remember the deletions, the threats, the doxxing and everything else. More than anything I recall them revealing on other sites how it makes them hard when someone calls them a trans woman and I’m not being forced to participate in a fetish.

I am not accusing your loved ones of being this way. Only you will know if they’re as disturbed as we are about the loss of women’s rights, the tra movement and forced language.

So I’ll refer to them in practical terms, men who identify as women. If they’re as much as a feminist as you claim they are they’d understand why.

because it doesn’t bother me whatsoever

@Elmo2025

How far does something not affecting you directly but affecting others extend? Do you never put in charity tins for cancer if you don't have it? Never give to the starving children in Africa because that doesn't affect you whatsoever either?

You are very privileged if this ideology doesn't bother you whatsoever. It means you're probably not one of the 1 in 4 women who've been sexually assaulted by a man, probably not one of the women in prison who was raped by a 'TW' , probably don't have a troubled autistic teenage girl who is being encouraged to chop her tits off to solve her problems. You also likely don't play sport and don't have daughters who play sports.

There are huge numbers of females whom are negatively affected by this hugely misogynistic ideology.

And it starts with you thinking it doesn't matter if you call a male, she.

Just because something doesn't affect us directly, doesn't mean we shouldn't do something to help those it does.

I’m just saying good luck trying to call someone non binary a man or a woman because it’s deeply personal and you’ll end up in an argument/debate - who can be arsed with that?

Again, you must be new here. Because debating why some people want to pretend they aren’t the sex they are is a key reason this forum exists. People can be arsed with it because I’ve yet to see someone who claims to be non-binary put together any form of cohesive argument. So it’s useful for people to see how nonsensical it all is.