April is Bowel Cancer Awareness month. Thanks to our partners for sharing information about bowel screening and for helping us to highlight that BowelScreen is now available to people aged 59 to 70. By inviting people aged 70, more than 48,000 men and women have the chance to stay in the screening programme. This gives people another vital opportunity to take the home test to reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
Joe Grogan’s story
BowelScreen patient advocate Joe Grogan, from Tuam, Co. Galway shared his BowelScreen story.
Joe took the BowelScreen test at age 59, just after we lowered the age range in October 2023. His bowel cancer was detected early through bowel screening. Now, Joe is encouraging others to choose screening.
He says: “I don’t want people to be afraid of getting screened for bowel cancer. It’s a first step. If [the test] comes back negative, happy days. If there is an issue, deal with it. Don’t let it go. Bowel cancer can be a treatable condition, especially when it’s found early.”
Watch Joe’s BowelScreen video story.
The latest BowelScreen data
We’ve published our BowelScreen Programme Report for the years 2022 and 2023.
It shows that we invited over 617,000 people to take part in BowelScreen during these two years and had an uptake rate of 46.4%. This is similar to the uptake rate for the previous two years (2020 to 2021), and slightly below our programme target of 50%.
The uptake rate among people who previously completed a BowelScreen home screening test is 89.2%. We know that once people have done one test they are likely to return to screening, so encouraging first-time participation is a focus of our work.
Read more about our work to support people to choose screening.
New research finds ways to increase uptake in bowel screening among first-time invitees
We’ve supported new research that shows posting a BowelScreen home screening test kit directly to people who are eligible could help people to take part in bowel screening. We found that 6% more people took the BowelScreen test when they were sent the home test kit directly with their reminder letter. We also found that sending the test kit with the reminder letter increased uptake in lower socioeconomic areas by 5%.
Speaking about the research BowelScreen Programme Manager, Hilary Coffey Farrell, said: “Uptake rates in BowelScreen are a priority for us and we are focused on working to remove any possible barriers to bowel cancer screening, particularly among men, and those in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, where participation remains lowest.”
Share our resources
We’ve developed a Bowel Cancer Awareness Month partner pack with our colleagues in the National Cancer Control Programme. It includes resources and messages about bowel screening and bowel cancer that you can share during Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. If you would like a copy of the partner pack, please contact us at communications@screeningservice.ie.
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