Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening programmes of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation in younger people.

No assessment has been made.

The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.

Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.