Home test kits for bowel cancer

Home testing kits are to be sent out to people in their 60s in a bowel cancer screening programme for England, the government has announced.

The tests will identify those who may have the disease which is the second largest cause of cancer death in the UK. By 2009, everyone aged 60-69 will be asked to self-test every two years.

Bowel cancer kills around 14,000 people each year but many elderly people likely to have the condition feel uncomfortable talking about it, which means it often goes undiagnosed. The government hopes the privacy and dignity of the home testing kits will overcome people's natural reluctance to talk about symptoms. Ministers believe such a screening programme could cut the death rate by 15%.

Launching the programme, health minister Rosie Winterton said: 'Although bowel cancer affects more than one in 20 people in their lifetime, of those who get the disease 90% survive if it is caught early.'

People taking part in the scheme will send stool samples to a laboratory, where they will be analysed for the presence of blood.

The programme, promised in the 2000 NHS Plan, will cost £37.5m in its first two years, and is to be phased in from April 2006. Around 25% of England (300,000 people) will be covered in the first year of the programme. By 2009, the aim is for two million to receive the kits annually.

Five centres, which will include testing laboratories, are to be set up around the UK to analyse the kits. Strategic Health Authorities are being invited to bid to provide a first wave of local screening centres.