The Irish Cancer Society has welcomed a recommendation by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to lower the age eligibility of BowelScreen to 50 years old, saying it would bring hundreds of thousands of people into the BowelScreen programme and save more lives. 

In written submissions to the National Screening Advisory Committee (NSAC), in successive Pre-Budget Submissions and in ongoing Bowel Cancer Awareness campaigns, the Irish Cancer Society argued that the current screening age target of 55-74 is insufficient and that international evidence supported the lowering of BowelScreen to 50 years old.  

However, the Irish Cancer Society cautioned that HIQA’s recommendation comes with warnings of “significant ongoing capacity challenges”, including “long wait lists”, which echo the Irish Cancer Society’s concerns regarding chronic delays in cancer care and the urgent need for additional ringfenced multiannual funding for improvements in cancer services.  

Welcoming HIQA’s announcement, Steve Dempsey, Director of Advocacy and Communications at the Irish Cancer Society, said; “This announcement, while hugely welcome, does not mean BowelScreen will be expanded overnight. We are hopeful that Government will accept HIQA’s recommendation and at the same outline a clear plan as to how it will urgently investment in endoscopy, histopathology and diagnostic radiology services so that this proposed BowelScreen expansion can become a reality.” 

See page XXX of this magazine for an article from HIQA on this issue.