Overview
NHS bowel cancer screening checks if you could have bowel cancer. It’s available to everyone aged 58 to 74 years.
The programme is expanding to make it available to everyone aged 50 to 59 years. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021.
You use a home test kit, called a faecal immunochemical test (FIT), to collect a small sample of poo and send it to a lab. This is checked for tiny amounts of blood.
Blood can be a sign of polyps or bowel cancer. Polyps are growths in the bowel. They are not cancer, but may turn into cancer over time.
If the test finds anything unusual, you might be asked to go to hospital to have further tests to confirm or rule out cancer.
Always see a GP if you have symptoms of bowel cancer at any age, even if you have recently completed a NHS bowel cancer screening test kit – do not wait to have a screening test.
Videos
How to do a bowel cancer screening test in Gujarati
How to do a bowel cancer screening test in English
How to do a bowel cancer screening test in Urdu
How to do a bowel cancer screening test with Hystool
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Bowel cancer screening test in Gujarati
Bowel cancer screening test in English
Bowel cancer screening test in Urdu