Former Conservative health secretary Andrew Lansley has revealed he has bowel cancer, and has called on the government to improve the NHS’s current screening programme for the disease.
Lord Lansley, who served in the cabinet under David Cameron, has stage 3 bowel cancer, but has said there is “every reason to hope” he will survive the illness long-term.
As health secretary, the 61-year-old helped launch the “bowelscope” screening programme for people over 54, but governments cuts, a lack of endoscopists and problems with IT systems have hampered the system’s delivery, currently only available to around half of the population, Lansley told the Daily Telegraph.
Lansley echoed calls from BBC presenter George Alagiah, who has stage 4 bowel cancer, to reduce the age of NHS screening for the disease to 50. The former health secretary also said the government should invest in a better screening tests.
He wrote: “When I was health secretary, among the early plans for cancer investment that David Cameron and I announced in October 2010 was a commitment to introduce a one-off flexible Sigmoidoscopy, or “bowelscope” test, at age 55, with a pilot leading to a national roll-out across England by the end of 2016.”
“If this had happened, I would have been called to this new screening programme. But the “bowelscope” is only available to about 50% of the population. A lack of endoscopists and difficulties with IT have frustrated delivery. Bowelscope could save 3,000 lives a year, but training and recruiting endoscopists and support staff will take years.”
He continued: “Health Education England is getting more resources for training more NHS staff, reversing the Treasury-imposed cut to the Health Education England budget in 2014 (when it was treated, wrongly, as a budget not within the NHS ‘ring-fence’). There is a screening programme using the faecal occult blood test, at age 60, but it is blunt and misses too many cancers.”
