Scottish government publish equity in screening strategy

The Scottish Government, supported by partners including Bowel Cancer UK, have published its first ever strategy on equity in screening for the country.

Screening is a vital tool for identifying early signs of diseases such as bowel cancer, leading to earlier treatment and improved health outcomes. However, certain groups of people face avoidable and unfair differences in accessing screening services, resulting in health inequalities across the country.

The Scottish Equity in Screening Strategy aims to address these disparities and overcome barriers and facilitate fair access to screening services for Scottish people.

The greatest impact on inequalities has been the introduction of the faecal immunochemical test (FIT) in the Scottish bowel screening programme in November 2017. The FIT provides a more acceptable screening test for participants compared to the previous test, and this has led to an increased uptake in bowel screening by men, and a slight reduction in the gap in uptake between those living in more deprived areas and more affluent areas. However, despite this, bowel screening continues to have the lowest uptake of all screening programmes.

Gerard McMahon, Head of Policy & Influencing (Devolved Nations) at Bowel Cancer UK, says:

This strategy is an important step forward in understanding and addressing the stark inequalities across Scotland’s screening programmes. We are especially pleased to see that the strategy outlines a commitment to collect more data to understand why some groups of people don’t take part in screening. We can then truly understand and address the barriers to participating in screening and improve outcomes.

Bowel cancer is Scotland’s second biggest cancer killer, but it doesn’t need to be as it’s treatable and curable. And screening is one of the best ways to detect the disease early when treatment is more likely to be successful.

It was a privilege to sit on the reference group for this strategy and we look forward to continue working with the Scottish Government to improve bowel cancer screening uptake among all eligible groups across the country.?

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