At-home bowel cancer checks are to be offered to 58-year-olds in England in a bid to increase the number of cases detected. As part of an extension of the bowel cancer screening programme the health service is sending at-home kits to people over 58.
It is the latest stage of a planned expansion of the programme, whereby the NHS in England has committed to offering the test to all over-50s by 2025. Some 830,000 additional people aged 58 in England will be eligible for the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), NHS England said.
People will be automatically sent the test in the post, which involves them collecting a sample of their poo and returning it in pre-paid packaging. The sample is sent for lab analysis and if any abnormalities are detected people are invited in for further checks.
