Bowel cancer screening

Overview

Bowel cancer screening aims to detect bowel cancer at an early stage before symptoms have a chance to develop. It reduces death from bowel cancer¹

and may also help to prevent bowel cancer through the identification and removal of pre-cancerous polyps or adenomas ².

There are around 44,100 new bowel cancer cases in the UK every year (2017-2019). When diagnosed at its earliest stage, survival is much higher than when the disease is diagnosed at a late stage (stages 3 & 4).

There are separate bowel screening programmes for the different UK nations, which invite eligible people to take part in bowel cancer screening by letter every two years. Bowel cancer screening is available to the following groups in each nation:

• England: people aged 54 to 74 years who are registered with a GP. NHS England is gradually expanding the programme to people aged between 50 and 59.

• Northern Ireland: people aged 60 to 74 years who are registered with a GP.

• Scotland: people aged 50 to 74 years with a CHI (Community Health Index) number.

• Wales: everyone aged 50 to 74 years who is registered with a GP and living in Wales. People aged 50 will start to be invited between October 2024 and July 2025. 

Our at-a-glance guide shows how bowel cancer screening criteria varies across the UK.

Bowel cancer screening at a glance(PDF, 148 KB)

Insights

Overview of UK bowel cancer screening programmes

Includes information on the screening test, uptake statistics, promoting informed choice, safety netting and surveillance.

Encouraging informed participation

Includes information on the screening test, uptake statistics, promoting informed choice, safety netting and surveillance.

Improvements and future optimisation

Includes information around planned changes to the programme, including age extension and FIT sensitivity thresholds.

Information for the public

Find out what bowel cancer screening is, who’s eligible and how to complete the test.

Visit our bowel cancer screening page

Resources for health professionals

In this section you will find resources and examples of good practice that can enable you to support informed participation in bowel cancer screening.

Primary Care bowel cancer screening good practice guide

Cancer Research UK’s Primary Care good practice guide provides health professionals in primary care with practical tools and information to support their practice population to participate in bowel cancer screening through informed choice.

Read our bowel cancer screening good practice guide - UK-wide(PDF, 708 KB)

Bowel cancer information at a glance

For a more concise overview of bowel cancer detection and diagnosis, you can read our bowel cancer screening at a glance resource(PDF, 148 KB) and our two-page bowel guide(PDF) to the recognition, referral and management of suspected bowel cancer.

Tackling inequalities

For additional information and support addressing inequalities, read our resource reducing inequalities in cancer screening(PDF) and NHS England guidance NHS bowel cancer screening: identifying and reducing inequalities.

FIT screening and symptomatic pathway resources

There are some key differences in the use of Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) for screening asymptomatic people through the bowel screening programme, compared to it being used to investigate symptomatic patients.

Cancer Research UK have developed infographics to highlight the different uses of FIT.

• Screening vs. Symptomatic FIT infographic (England)(PDF, 36.8 KB)

• Screening vs. Symptomatic FIT infographic (Scotland)(PDF, 61.3 KB)

• Screening vs. Symptomatic FIT infographic (Wales)(PDF, 81.4 KB)

• Screening vs. Symptomatic FIT infographic (Northern Ireland)(PDF, 77.6 KB)

Visit our FIT Symptomatic webpage for more information.

Talk Cancer: Cancer Awareness Training

Our Talk Cancer training workshops for community-based health workers and volunteers, help trainees feel more confident in talking to the public about cancer.

Find out more or commission a Talk Cancer workshop

Resources for Patients

You can share the following resources with your patients to help increase awareness, understanding of and participation in the bowel cancer screening programme.

Videos

An animated video which explains how to complete the bowel cancer screening test kit. There's a subtitled version too.

• ‘How to do the bowel cancer screening test’ - subtitled version

• ‘How to do your bowel screening test’ (Scotland)

• ‘How to do your bowel screening test’ (Wales) - English version

• ‘How to do your bowel screening test’ (Wales) - Welsh version

You can also find short animations produced by NHSE Screening which explain how to use your bowel cancer screening kit. Subtitles are available in English, as well as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Farsi, Gujarati, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi and Urdu. A British Sign Language version is also available.

Infographics – how to do bowel cancer screening

Step-by-step infographics on how to complete the bowel cancer screening test kit and practical tips how to collect the poo sample.

• England FIT version(PDF, 1.14 MB)

• Scotland FIT version(PDF, 1.13 MB)

• Wales FIT version(PDF, 1.14 MB)

Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) information

Bowel cancer screening programmes send leaflets with invitations to bowel cancer screening. They include information to support informed choice with respect to bowel screening participation, and information about benefits and harms.

These key patient leaflets and information support patient participation in bowel cancer screening:

• Leaflets explaining how to use the FIT kit in England are available in multiple languages, large print, British Sign Language and for those with learning disabilities. Access an easy read version of the English BSCP Leaflet

• NHS Inform offers information on bowel cancer screening in Scotland in a range of languages and formats

• Public Health Wales provides a number of patient leaflets

• The Northern Ireland BCSP provides a range of leaflets in, which are available in multiple languages

Lynch syndrome resources

There are several patient resources to support informed participation in Lynch syndrome surveillance:

• Screening for people at high risk of bowel cancer

• Bowel cancer screening on the NHS site

• ‘Helping you decide’ leaflet on GOV.UK

Cancer Awareness Roadshow

Our Roadshow nurses visit local communities, raising awareness of cancer risk factors, screening and early detection. We work closely with health partners in each area we visit and help signpost people to local services.

Find out more and work with the Cancer Awareness Roadshow in your area