Bowel cancer screening to be offered to people in their 60s
Everyone aged 60 to 69 years is to be offered screening for bowel cancer as part of a national programme in England, health minister Rosie Winterton announced this week.
The programme is to be phased in from April 2006 over three years, with
screening for each person taking place every two years. Home testing
kits (for faecal occult blood) will be sent to around two million people
in the target group each year. People aged 70 years and over will be
provided with a testing kit on request. After testing, kits will be sent
to a laboratory for analysis.
Ms Winterton said: “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.”
Five centres, including testing laboratories, will be set up to co-ordinate
the programme and to analyse the tests. These centres will be commissioned
centrally by NHS Cancer
Screening Programmes, and funded by the Department
of Health. A DoH spokesman explained that the screening service could
be provided by NHS or independent sector providers, although strategic
health authorities will bid for the first wave of local screening centres.
He added that 300,000 people would be targeted in the first wave of the
programme with two million people being screened each year once the service
was up and running. |
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