Health Minister David Ashford says work continues to improve the reliability of the breast screening service, following problems highlighted last year.

A number of patients were recalled after five women were wrongly given the all-clear after screenings.

All cases related to one consultant, who is no longer at Noble’s Hospital.

In Tynwald last week Health Minister David Ashford (pictured) repeated his comments made at the time about the standard of work carried out.

’It did fall way below the standards that we should quite rightly expect,’ he said.

He added there were ’several pieces of work’ ongoing.

A clinical lead for breast care had been identified and changes were being made about how scans were processed and double checked.

He added that the Department of Health and Social Care was now looking to appoint a breast screening director to monitor performance.

Mr Ashford pledged to circulate the outcome of the review of procedures that was conducted following last year’s problems.

Last year, it was revealed that five women were referred for further examination due to suspicious lesions, following assessments in early 2017, but were wrongly given the all-clear. That came to light at their next routine screening.

The same radiologist - no longer working at Noble’s Hospital - was involved in all cases, sparking a review.

A total of 1,213 cases were subsequently re-examined and, from those, 26 women were found to require further examination. The 26 were recalled for reassessment.

’Each case was investigated separately and the outcomes acted on accordingly as required,’ said the minister.

One individual was reassessed in their local hospital off-island, as she had moved away, 21 individuals were discharged following reassessment, two could not be contacted or traced and one woman, although contacted, did not want to be reassessed.

There was one other case where a ductal carcinoma in situ was found, he said, ’and that individual is now on a five-year follow-up’ programme.