Bowel Screening

Hello, I'm Clive Anderson, and I'd like to welcome you to the website about screening for bowel cancer. You may have read about this new screening program in the newspapers or heard about it on the radio. We may have received an invitation in the post to do the faecal occult blood test. This is the first UK mass screening program which uses a self-sampling kit and the first to be offered to men as well as women.

By 2009, all those aged 60 to 69 should have received an invitation to take part in this type of screening. Bowel cancer affects over 35,000 people in the UK each year. Many cases are diagnosed too late but if diagnosed early it's highly treatable. Screening for bowel cancer is free on the National Health Service so there's no cost involved. But as with other screening tests there are advantages and disadvantages of doing the test. On the website, you can see and hear ordinary men and women from different parts of the country talking about their experiences of screening. Some of these people received normal results after the tests, while others received abnormal results and some found they had bowel polyps or bowel cancer.

On the website you can also see a few people who decided not to take part in the screening. They explained why they made that decision. Now you might be trying to decide whether or not to do the faecal occult blood test yourself, or you may be trying to decide whether or not to have further investigations or treatment. The website may help to answer some of your questions.

Whatever your situation, we hope you find this part of the website useful.