Bowel Cancer: Screening

Coverage of bowel cancer screening has been increasing in recent years. In 2019, 60.5% of people took the offer up, while now it is 71.8%.

The bowel cancer screening programme has standards, including thresholds. The acceptable threshold is the lowest level of performance which screening services are expected to attain. The achievable threshold represents the level at which the screening service is likely to be running optimally.

The threshold levels have recently been reviewed, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. The new coverage thresholds for people aged between 60 and 74 years old is an acceptable level of more than or equal to 62%, and an achievable level of more than or equal to 76%.

To further increase coverage across England, NHS England is doing the following:

• delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App;
• incorporating the reasonable adjustment flag into screening to ensure that people get information in the way they want, and that adjustments are made to support people at appointments;
• has recently updated the bowel cancer screening leaflets and is updating the bowel cancer screening letters to improve accessibility; and
• has made the bowel cancer screening faecal immunochemical test kit more accessible for people who are blind or partially sighted.