Mentions:
1: Christina Rees (LAB - Neath) conditions that are not exempt from prescription charges, including MS, endometriosis, inflammatory bowel - Speech Link
2: Preet Kaur Gill (LAB - Birmingham, Edgbaston) There has been only one review since then, under the last Labour Government, when cancer was rightly - Speech Link
3: Andrea Leadsom (Con - South Northamptonshire) exemptions apply to people with medical conditions such as epilepsy, certain types of diabetes and cancer - Speech Link
Asked by: Mochan, Carol (Scottish Labour - South Scotland)
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what work it is doing to improve the uptake and successful return of bowel screening kits.
Answered by Minto, Jenni - Minister for Public Health and Women's Health
A report recently published by Public Health Scotland on 5 May confirmed that uptake for bowel screening continues to exceed the Healthcare Improvement Scotland standard of 60%. The Scottish Government is aware that continued work is required to improve uptake, and to make the process as straightforward as possible for individuals to complete.
Education and accessible information is one strand of this work. Both the online NHS Inform bowel screening content and the leaflets issued with bowel screening kits have been revised to respond to user feedback on clarity and accessibility. In addition, both the Scottish Government and the NHS will use Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in April to further raise awareness of the importance of bowel screening.
Increasing uptake requires supporting education efforts with a relentless focus on reducing inequalities. The Equity in Screening Strategy was published last year, with a vision for equitable access across the full screening pathway, including in the bowel screening programme. This, in combination with a new Equity in Screening Network, will help NHS Boards to find effective ways to address inequalities in uptake, and increase participation in the bowel screening programme.
Since 2017, the Scottish Government has provided £1 million funding annually to address screening inequalities. Part of this fund has been distributed to NHS Boards, allowing them to support initiatives catering to their specific populations. The remainder of the screening inequalities fund was used for national initiatives, such as the development of the Screening Intelligence Platform (ScIP). This will provide an efficient, single point of access to linkable data from all of the National Screening Programmes, including bowel screening. This will therefore help to inform and support the work of public sector bodies to increase participation in bowel screening.
Mentions:
1: Sarwar, Anas (Lab - Glasgow) Only one in five people is getting crucial bowel cancer tests on time, which is shocking when cancer - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: None I am sorry to go on, but our network is currently advising people who are going through bowel cancer - Speech Link
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to improve the rate of early diagnosis of (a) bowel and (b) bowel-related cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is taking steps to improve the rate of early diagnosis for all cancers, including bowel and bowel-related cancers, and is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan, for tackling the COVID-19 related backlogs in elective care. This includes plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment.
NHS England is working to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which sets a target of 28 days from urgent referral by a general practitioner or screening programme to patients being told that they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out. To achieve this target NHS England has: streamlined bowel cancer pathways by implementing faecal immunochemical testing triage for patients in primary and secondary care settings on a suspected cancer pathway; implemented non-symptom specific pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, that can indicate several different cancers; and has opened community diagnostic centres across England, expanding diagnostic capacity and by prioritising this capacity for cancer services.
In 2023 the NHS England’s Help Us Help You campaign urged people to take up the offer of bowel screening when invited, and the screening offer for the bowel screening programme is being gradually extended from age 60 down to 50 years old by 2025, ensuring more people are screened and potentially diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage. The National Health Service is also now offering routine preventative bowel cancer screening to thousands of people in England with a genetic condition, Lynch syndrome, that increases their chance of developing bowel cancer and other certain other cancers. This gives the NHS a better chance of finding cancers at a time when they can be more easily and effectively treated.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure equality in bowel cancer outcomes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service is taking several steps to improve bowel cancer outcomes for patients across England. The NHS is working towards its Long Term Plan’s ambition of diagnosing 75% of all stageable cancers at stage one and two, by 2028. Achieving this will mean that an additional 55,000 people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis. With progress made on reducing waiting times, cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier stage more often, with survival rates improving across almost all types of cancer.
In 2023, NHS England’s Help Us Help You campaign urged people to take up the offer of bowel screening when invited, while gradually extending the screening offer from those aged 60 down to 50 years old, ensuring more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.
The NHS is also now offering routine preventative bowel cancer screening to thousands of people in England with a genetic condition, Lynch syndrome, that increases their chance of developing bowel cancer and certain other cancers. This gives the NHS a better chance of finding cancers at a time when they can be more easily and effectively treated.
Tackling disparities is important in improving all types of cancer outcomes. The Government is committed to its levelling up mission, to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030 and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. Our approach will continue to focus on supporting people to live healthier lives, helping the NHS and social care provide the best treatment and care for patients, and tackling health disparities through national and system interventions such as the NHS’s Core20PLUS5 programme.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities was set up to address health inequalities with a range of interventions, including accelerating prevention programmes, reducing digital exclusion, supporting general practice in deprived communities, and improving health literacy.
Mar. 01 2024
Source Page: Morton Hall Prison: Action PlanFound: An administrator ensured that all eligible men received national screening , such as bowel cancer and
Mar. 01 2024
Source Page: Morton Hall Prison: Action PlanFound: An administrator ensured that all eligible men received national screening , such as bowel cancer and
Feb. 29 2024
Source Page: SACN annual report 2023Found: received per annum over £5,000: Yes Subject matter: Mobile app to support people with I rritable bowel
Oral Evidence Feb. 22 2024
Inquiry: Food, Diet and ObesityFound: span everything from dementia, anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer