Bowel Cancer Screening Age

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has secured this debate. My mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer at 56 and, ironically, my father, who was 60 at the time, had received the screening kit five months previously. Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows the need to review the age at which people are screened?

[Caroline Ansell]

I agree, and I hope we can put that need forward today. I know that the Minister and her Department are working hard in this area and that they are all the time seeking to secure better outcomes. I hope that they might just revisit the screening age as part of that.

It has been really moving to hear from right hon. and hon. Members about their own experiences and about the losses they have suffered. Lauren is here today, having lost her mum. What a terrible tragedy that is. It feels especially poignant that we are here so soon after celebrating mother’s day.

With today’s advances in life expectancy, 56—the age at which Lauren’s mother died— is incredibly young, yet if Lauren’s mother had lived in Scotland, she would have been screened three times before the age at which she was diagnosed, increasing the chances of early detection and therefore survival. Learning that must have been a bitter blow. England has, however, led in this area. In 2006, we became the first home nation and one of the first countries in the world to offer routine screening for bowel cancer, with the faecal occult blood test, or FOBT, being sent every two years to those aged 60 to 69—later extended to 74. However, a year later Scotland implemented the same screening, with the crucial difference that it would begin from the age of 50.

The national screening committee, which ran FOBT pilots in the early 2000s, felt that 50 was the right age at which to begin to screen. It noted a lower take-up of the test in 50 to 60-year-olds compared with those over the age of 60, but recommended that the Government take measures to address that. However, when deciding on final implementation it was recognised that, due to a shortage of endoscopy equipment and with substantially higher incidence rates over the age of 60, screening would begin with that age group. It is conceded that more than 80% of those diagnosed with bowel cancer are over the age of 60.

A University of Sheffield study recommended that offering both bowel scope screening and the FOBT from the age of 60 would maximise survival rates and have the important trade-off of being cost-effective. Yet the same study also found that the FOBT would substantially lower the number of deaths by as much as 23% if it was run for 50 to 69-year-olds, whereas running it from the age of 60 only would reduce the number of deaths by only 14%. It is hard to talk about percentages but, just to bring the debate back to the personal level, that significant 9% would have included Lauren’s mum, and perhaps other people we know.

We know that there is a clear upward incidence of bowel cancer over the age of 50. The rate of bowel cancer roughly triples between one’s 40s and one’s 50s, before doubling again in one’s 60s. We all should be aware of the signs and take precautions in our diet and lifestyle to prevent and detect bowel cancer—and, yes, perhaps we ought to shed the very British attitude that we must keep calm and carry on, and seek out our GP. More must be done to improve screening uptake rates. Bowel cancer screening rates remain disappointingly low nationwide, having barely moved above those achieved in the pilot 16 years ago.