Bowel Cancer Screening Age
Debate between Caroline Ansell and Margaret Ferrier(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered bowel cancer screening age.
Bowel cancer is second only to lung cancer for the number of lives it takes. Across the country, 165,457 people have signed a petition to bring down the bowel cancer screening age in the UK in a bid to hit this devastating disease.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
It is extremely unfortunate that bowel cancer— screening is available only in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from the age of 60. Would the hon. Lady’s welcome the Scottish Government’s approach of screening people from the age of 50 being taken up across the rest of the UK? That would surely give many individuals an early diagnosis and a higher chance of survival.
Caroline Ansell
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I recognise that earlier screening in Scotland and would certainly welcome it.
The petition that I mentioned has been well supported; in fact, it has had 500 new signatories this very day. The originator of the petition, Lauren Backler, has travelled from Eastbourne to be with us today in Westminster. May I at this point pay tribute to her courage and endeavour? For anyone hearing the news that they or a loved one have been diagnosed with bowel cancer, it will be simply earth-shattering, as Lauren knows. She writes:
“On 2nd December 2014, my Mum Fiona Backler was diagnosed with bowel cancer, at Eastbourne DGH’s”—
Eastbourne District General Hospital’s—
“Accident and Emergency and was told a few days later that the cancer was terminal. She started palliative chemotherapy within a week, but despite us being told that potentially she could have up to 2 years to live, she passed away on 28th March 2015, just under 4 months after diagnosis and a week after her 56th birthday. Before she was diagnosed, she had been back and forth to her GP with vague symptoms, and had even had an endoscopy about a year and a half beforehand, which she had been told was all clear. When she was diagnosed, her consultant told us that the cancer had possibly been missed at that stage.
Bowel cancer screening can often pick up abnormalities in people who have no symptoms at all, and so I believe that if the screening age was lowered to 50 it would give thousands of people a fighting chance of beating the disease.”