Jim Fitzpatrick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the National Screening Committee’s recommendations for the bowel and cervical screening programmes; and whether he plans to support those recommendations

Jane Ellison

Ministers have accepted the UK National Screening Committee’s (UK NSC) recommendation on replacing the guaiac Faecal Occult Blood test with the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) in the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme. Following the change to FIT we expect that around 200,000 more people per year will take up the opportunity to be screened as part of the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme in England. This has the potential to save hundreds more lives by detecting bowel cancer earlier. Public Health England is responsible for the leadership of the NHS Screening Programmes and will oversee the change to the programme in partnership with NHS England.

Ministers are currently considering the UK NSC’s recommendation that human papillomavirus testing should replace the currently used cytology test as primary screening for cervical disease.