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PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Bowel Cancer: Screening (22 January 2018)

Question Asked

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has plans to reduce the bowel cancer screening age; and if he will make a statement.

Asked by:
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Labour)

Answer

Using existing evidence and modelling techniques the United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UKNSC) is currently consulting on changes to the current bowel screening programme - whether bowel scope and Faecal Immunochemical Testing (FIT) can be offered as a combination or if FIT is robust enough to be the primary screen test from the age of 50 years.

The three month consultation closes on 7 April with a recommendation at a subsequent meeting. Information about the consultation and how to participate is available at:

https://legacyscreening.phe.org.uk/bowelcancer

If any changes are to be made to an existing screening programme this will follow the UK NSC’s published evidence review process which can be viewed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-evidence-review-process


Answered by:
Steve Brine (Conservative)
30 January 2018

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.