Bowel Cancer: Screening

(asked on 18th April 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what additional funding will be made available to ensure that hospitals and clinical commissioning groups have the resources required to implement new NICE guidance recommending that all patients newly diagnosed with bowel cancer are tested for Lynch syndrome.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 26th April 2017

In current NHS England commissioning practice, testing for Lynch syndrome in people with colorectal cancer is targeted using criteria based on family history and age of cancer onset to determine people at high risk.

New National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance recommends extending this offer to all people with colorectal cancer when they are first diagnosed. Offering tests to all people with colorectal cancer will need to be considered by NHS England as part of its policy development process. Each year, a number of new drugs, medical devices, tests and treatments in specialised services are put forward to NHS England. The promising proposals are considered by experts in the field, including doctors, public health experts and lay people. These groups, established by NHS England, are known as Clinical Reference Groups (CRGs). The CRGs make detailed assessments of the new treatments, tests and devices through Policy Working Groups.

The NICE guidance has been sent to the Genetic Medicine CRG and they have been asked to submit a Preliminary Policy Proposal and to identify a Clinical Lead for progressing the proposal.

Consideration of the commissioning position and any financial implications will only be discussed once the proposal has been rigorously assessed.

Reticulating Splines