Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to offer screening for bowel cancer to all over 45s.

Following Ministerial approval of the United Kingdom National Screening Committee’s (UK NSC) recommendation to introduce Faecal Immunochemical Testing as the primary screen test in the National Health Service Bowel Cancer Screening Programme, the UK NSC commissioned the Sheffield School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) to use existing evidence and modelling techniques to describe options for optimising bowel cancer screening. This includes different cut off levels for the test and various age ranges.

The UK NSC will continue to work with ScHARR and stakeholders, and will make a final recommendation in 2018.