The National Health Service Bowel Cancer Screening Program: the early years

Abstract

The National Health Service Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NHS BCSP) was developed to improve outcomes from colorectal cancer, the third most frequent cancer and the second highest cause of cancer deaths in the UK. Screening pilot programs were developed after previous trials demonstrated a reduction in mortality with the use of fecal occult blood population screening. A successful pilot period led to the roll out of national biennial screening for all 60–69 year olds in 2006, and extended to 60–74 year olds in 2010. To the end of 2012, there have been over 16 million invitations to screening, with uptake of 55.35%. FOBt positivity was 2.08%. Almost 15,000 cancers have been identified; screen-detected cancers have been shown to be at an earlier stage than non-screen-detected, with 35% Dukes’ stage A. The BCSP provides high quality colonoscopy with low adverse events rates. It is also a rich data source for research.

Keywords::

• colonoscopy quality
• colorectal cancer
• population-based screening

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank British Cancer Screening Program Evaluation Group, South of Tyne Screening Centre, Northern Region Endoscopy Group, Claire Nickerson, Ginny Fieldsend, Julietta Patnick and Simon Panter.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.