National Bowel Screening Programme to resume after Covid-19 pause

Emma Steven with her children Keylani (left) and Andre. Steven, who has stage four bowel cancer, will do the Move your Butt challenge to raise money for Bowel Cancer NZ. Photo / Supplied

New invitations for bowel screening won't be sent out until next week as district health boards scramble to catch up on procedures to detect the disease, in the wake of Covid-19.

The National Bowel Screening Programme has restarted by asking people who received a bowel screening test kit in the mail just before or during lockdown to complete their kit and send it back.

Programme clinical director Dr Susan Parry said about 29,000 people were sent letters reminding them to return, complete or repeat a test kit while the bowel screening programme was paused during the Covid-19 response.

However, these letters also advised participants to hold off sending their bowel screening test kit back until the restrictions were lifted.

"The kits have a six month expiry date so we're chasing those still outstanding and asking people to complete them and send them back as soon as possible if they have not already done so," Parry said.

"This is important because these tests can help detect early bowel cancers and they really do save lives.

"At this time of heightened awareness, this is a positive and proactive thing people can do for their health.

Parry said despite the pause in invitations during the Covid-19 lockdown, the programme continued to process test results for people already on the screening pathway.

Those with positive test results were now being offered follow-up investigations, in most cases a colonoscopy - the procedure used to detect bowel cancer.

"DHBs are working through the backlog of cases to offer timely colonoscopies. We are asking people to be patient as they wait for their appointment but to be reassured the Ministry of Health is monitoring the situation closely.

"We understand that for some people this may be an anxious time but it is important to remember that 92 out of 100 people who return a positive test do not have bowel cancer."

To enable district health boards to catch up on colonoscopy procedures, new invitations for screening won't be sent out until next Thursday, with recalls and the bowel screening test kits going out a fortnight later.

The majority of the 10 DHBs currently delivering bowel screening programmes were expected to re-start the programme then.

Parry said people who turned 75 when bowel screening was paused and are now outside the eligible screening age of 60 to 74, would still be offered a screening test so they were not disadvantaged.

The programme, currently only available in half the country's DHBs, had sent out more than 430,000 FIT kits since it began almost three years ago and had detected more than 600 cancers, as well as removing thousands of potentially cancerous polyps.

Bowel Cancer NZ said earlier this week it wanted screening rolled out to all DHBs, for all Kiwis aged in their 50s to be included in screening by 2025 and for Māori in this age group to be screened immediately.