§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average length of training for medical laboratory scientific officers involved with cervical cancer screening.
97W
§ Mrs. Currie[holding answer 18 May 1988]: Because cytology is not recognised as a separate specialty for state registration of medical laboratory scientific officers but is included with histopathology, we have no information on the average length of training. Negotiations are currently under way with the professions supplementary to medicine 98W to define a new training course specifically for cytology. The recommendation for this course is a minimum training period of 12 months in a cytology laboratory during which time at least 3,000 smears should have been examined under supervision.