Three Midlands hospital trusts have been at the forefront of piloting a new sensitivity of bowel cancer screening announced by NHS England today.

As a result of the national roll out – which has been piloted at Worcestershire Acute Hospital NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton Hospitals Trust and Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust for around a year – thousands of cases of bowel cancer will be diagnosed earlier or even prevented, as part of major NHS plans to increase the sensitivity of bowel cancer screening to save more lives.

Stephen Lake, Clinical Director and Lead Colonoscopist of the Screening Programme at Worcestershire Acute Hospital NHS Trust, said: “For a year we have lowered the threshold for home-screening kits to trigger more referrals for further testing. This has meant an increase in the number of people identified with tiny traces of blood in their poo and an increase in the number we see in Worcestershire and Herefordshire for further testing and treatment. The entire team is delighted to be at the leading edge of this very important, life-saving expansion.”

The NHS estimates this change will detect around 600 additional bowel cancers early each year in England – around an 11% increase – and find 2,000 more people with high-risk polyps in their bowel, allowing patients to have preventative surgery before any cancers develop.

The home-testing kit, known as the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), is offered to all people over 50 years old and checks for blood in a small stool sample, which can be a sign of bowel cancer.

By reducing the level at which traces of blood in a FIT test would lead to further investigations, from 120 micrograms of blood per gram of poo down to 80, the NHS will offer 35% more screening colonoscopies each year to help diagnose or rule out cancer.

The move comes as the NHS is set to launch new digital alerts that a screening kit is on its way to people’s homes in a bid to boost screening uptake, as part of a radical new National Cancer Plan to be published by the Government next week to transform cancer care by 2035.

Peter Johnson, National Clinical Director for Cancer at NHS England, said: “This is a major step forward in bowel cancer detection. Finding bowel cancer earlier can mean less intensive treatment, a better chance of recovery, and in many cases people can avoid cancer altogether by having dangerous polyps removed before they cause harm.

“Testing at the lower threshold provides us with a better early-warning system, helping us to spot bowel cancer earlier, often picking up problems before symptoms appear, when treatment works best.

“I would strongly encourage everyone who is sent a bowel screening test to complete it and return it as soon as possible — it really could make all the difference.”

Once fully rolled out, testing at the lower threshold is expected to reduce late-stage diagnoses and deaths from bowel cancer by around six per cent, while detecting thousands more cancers earlier and preventing more cases will also save the NHS over £30 million each year in treatment costs.

For patients, the experience stays simple, and does not change. FIT tests are done at home by putting a sample in a small tube and returning it by post to the NHS for testing. The difference is that the NHS is now able to act earlier and more effectively, when it matters most.

The move builds on strong early results from NHS screening services already using the lower threshold, where closer working between screening and diagnostic teams has helped more people get checked sooner. Since the change was introduced in early adopter areas, more than 60 additional bowel cancers and nearly 500 high-risk polyps have already been found and treated, preventing illness and saving lives.

Following recommendations from the UK National Screening Committee, the NHS will now roll out the lower threshold carefully and fairly across the country, with national coverage completed by 2028.

Ivan, a personal trainer who felt fit and healthy, nearly ignored his bowel screening test. He said: “I felt fit, healthy and busy, and I kept putting my bowel screening test off. Cancer wasn’t something I thought would affect me. When I finally sent the test back, it picked up a problem that led to further checks and my diagnosis.

“I’m convinced that doing the test when I did changed everything — and if I’d left it any longer, it could have been a very different story. If your test is sitting in a drawer, don’t put it off. Send it back.”

At the same time, the NHS is making bowel screening easier to take part in, with digital alerts rolling out nationally from February, alerting people that their home testing kit is on its way.

The NHS rolled out digital communications for cervical screening last year, and so far nearly nine in ten women have used the NHS App for screening invites and reminders, making screening quicker, more convenient and less reliant on paper.