Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November to Question 881 on Bowel Cancer: Screening, what her planned timetable is for publishing a decision on lowering the screening age for bowel cancer from 60 to 50 years old.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England started the lowering of age for bowel cancer screening in April 2021. The following table shows the rollout plan for the bowel screening:
Cohort age at first invitation | Year invitations start |
Age 56 | 2021/22 |
Age 58 | 2022/23 |
Age 54 | 2023/24 |
Age 50 and 52 | 2024/25 |
Note: The timeline may differ slightly from region to region
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November to Question 881 on Bowel Cancer: Screening, when the last review of the national bowel cancer screening programme was completed; and what her planned timetable is for completing the next review.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) last looked at the evidence to optimise the population screening of bowel cancer in 2018. The Committee recommended screening every two years with the FIT test at 50 to 74 years old, rather than starting at 60 years old.
Since then, work has been underway to lower the bowel cancer screening age from 60 years old in a phased manner, so that by 2025, people aged 50 years old will receive a FIT test.
With these changes still being implemented, a date for the next review of bowel cancer screening has not yet been set. In the meantime, if any member of the public or stakeholder feels there should be further changes to the programme, these can be submitted via the UK NSC’s next annual call, which opens in summer 2024.
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, whether her Department has taken recent steps to (a) increase the availability of and (b) support the rollout of new immunotherapy treatments for bowel cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources. NICE appraises all newly licensed medicines within their licensed indications and the NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by NICE. Cancer medicines are eligible for funding from the Cancer Drugs Fund from the point of draft NICE guidance.
NICE has already recommended several immunotherapies for bowel cancer, which are now available for the treatment of eligible NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations. These include including panitumumab, pembrolizumab, and nivolumab with ipilimumab. NICE is also due to start its appraisal of nivolumab for previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer with high microsatellite instability or mismatch repair deficiency in March 2024.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help increase access to bowel cancer screenings.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Based on advice from the UK National Screening Committee, the National Health Service is currently extending the age criteria for bowel cancer screening from between 60 and 74 years old so that screening will be available from the age of 50 years old; this is due to be completed by 2024/25. This will increase access for people who would have otherwise not been able to access the service.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of lowering the screening age for (a) lung, (b) breast, (c) bowel and (d) other cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on the age eligibility for national screening programmes is set in recommendations from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC makes informed decisions on age eligibility based on scientific evidence on the effectiveness and harms to different age cohorts if they are invited to be screened.
Th UK NSC works to review and adapt programmes according to the latest scientific evidence. Following a UK NSC recommendation, the bowel cancer screening programme is currently lowing the eligible age to 50 years old from 60 years old. This is due to be finished by 2024/25. UK NSC awaits the outcome of a large research project called AgeX which is looking at the upper and lower age limit for breast screening.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the national bowel screening programme, when he plans to next review that programme; and whether he has plans to raise the acceptable and achievable bowel screening target thresholds in line with breast screening targets.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The national bowel cancer screening programme in England is currently revising all standards and as a part of this process current thresholds will be reviewed. This review will consider the lowering of the screening age for bowel cancer from 60 to 50 years old.
The process for setting standards involves the meeting of experts as well as meeting with stakeholders and interested parties to ensure the standards are evidence based, acceptable and realistic. Full details on how these standards are set is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/principles-of-population-screening/screening-standards
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of reducing the minimum age for bowel cancer screening.
Answered by Will Quince
A recent assessment of reducing the minimum age for bowel cancer screening has been made, and since April 2021 NHS England have gradually reduced the age for screening towards 50 as recommended by the UK National Screening Committee. Inclusion of people aged from 50 to 59 is being phased in over four years. 2024/25 should see the age extension reach 50-year-olds.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation among younger people in (a) England and (b) Europe.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.
Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening programmes of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation in younger people.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.
Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of faecal immunochemical tests in diagnosing cancer in under-50s in England; and what assessment he has made of levels of adherence to NICE guidelines on the use of those tests.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.
To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS.