Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help increase the level of uptake for the bowel cancer screening programme.

In 2019 the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) was rolled out in England for the bowel screening programme. FIT has found to be both more accurate and more acceptable to patients, because of its non-invasive nature.

To increase uptake of screening NHS England ran a ‘help us to help you’ campaign about bowel screening in February and March 2023. The aim of this campaign was to encourage people to take up the offer of bowel cancer screening.