US firm awarded cervical smear test contract

SMEAR TESTS for the forthcoming national cervical screening programme will be analysed by a US-based medical company.

However, the awarding of the contract to Quest Diagnostics has been criticised by Irish medical laboratory scientists.

The company was chosen following under criteria including independent accreditation and a capacity to process tests in 10 days.

The company has also committed to screening each slide twice by two cytologists, said Tony O’Brien, chief executive of the National Cancer Screening Service (NCSS).

However, organisations representing medical laboratory scientists described the decision not to award the testing to Irish public laboratories as “short-sighted”.

“The issue of accreditation of public labs is a red herring as all labs are currently on the road to full accreditation,” said Terry Casey, the general secretary of the Medical Laboratory Scientists’ Association.

Quest Diagnostics will sign a two-year contract that will be open for renewal after two years, at which point Irish accredited laboratories are welcome to apply, an NCSS spokeswoman said.

In 2006, Quest Diagnostics was contracted by the HSE to clear a backlog of cervical smears. The company, which processed some 13 million smear tests last year, is in discussions on establishing a base in Ireland.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times