Bowel cancer screening rolled out
Two million people will be offered home testing kits for bowel cancer as part of a new £370 million drive to beat the disease.
Bowel cancer is the second largest cause of cancer deaths in the UK and killed more than 16,000 people in 2003. About 30,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
Mortality rates for the disease have fallen by 17 per cent in the past ten years but health minister Rosie Winterton hopes the new initiative will help save even more lives.
From next April, men and women between the ages of 60 and 69 will be screened every two years using home testing kits, the results of which will be sent to a laboratory for analysis.
According to the Department of Health, Faecal Occult Blood (FOB) testing can cut death rates from bowel cancer by 15 per cent in those screened.
“The roll-out of the national screening programme for bowel cancer that I am announcing today will help save even more lives,” Ms Winterton said.
“Although bowel cancer affects more than one in 20 people in their lifetime, of those who get the disease 90 per cent survive if it is caught early.
“Because of the nature of the disease, people can feel uncomfortable talking about it, let alone coping with the symptoms. That is why the privacy and dignity that the home testing kits afford will help us better tackle the disease.”
Hilary Whittaker, chief executive of national charity Beating Bowel Cancer, welcomed the new screening programme.
“Bowel cancer is a huge disease in this country, killing almost 50 people every day, and we believe that the screening programme will be a positive step in reducing the number of deaths from this cancer, as well as raising awareness of bowel cancer amongst the general public,” she said.
The screening programme will be phased in gradually over a three-year period, while five programme hubs, including testing laboratories, will be set up for analysing the kit results.
