The National Bowel Screening Programme (NBSP) launches in Taranaki Friday 13 August, bringing free screening to more
than 21,000 Taranaki residents aged 60 - 74.
Taranaki District Health Board is the 18th DHB to offer bowel screening as the programme is rolled out around the
country. Since the screening programme started in 2017 around 380,000 people have participated and more than 950 have
had cancer detected - most unaware they had it.
Taranaki expects to screen about 6,500 people annually and to find about 26 new early colorectal cancers in the first
year of screening.
NBSP Clinical Lead for Taranaki, Dr Tom Boswell, says the introduction of bowel screening to Taranaki is a significant
milestone.
"Taranaki residents aged 60 to 74 now have access to free bowel screening. This means we have an excellent chance of
reducing the toll of disease and death from the second biggest cancer killer in New Zealand."
Dr Boswell says the launch of bowel screening in Taranaki has required months of preparation by the DHB, local GPs and
cancer care specialists to ensure capacity for the projected increase in demand the service will bring.
"Bowel screening saves lives by detecting cancer at an earlier stage when it’s usually highly treatable and also by
removing polyps, small growths in the bowel lining, which can become cancerous in time."
Participants in the bowel screening programme are invited to complete a simple home test kit that can detect microscopic
traces of blood in a bowel motion.
Dr Boswell says when bowel cancer is detected early it can have good outcomes. "People who are diagnosed with early
stage bowel cancer and receive treatment early have a 90 percent chance of long-term survival."
While bowel cancer can affect people of all ages, the programme is aimed at older people because most bowel cancer
occurs in people over the age of 60, Dr Boswell says.
"Typically, these are well people who are surprised and immensely grateful - as are their whānau and friends - that they
took a few minutes out of their lives to do the test. I can’t emphasise enough, if you get one of our kits in the mail,
please do it. It’s clean and simple and could save your life."
Additional information:
- The introduction of a national bowel screening programme in New Zealand followed a successful six-year pilot at
Waitematā District Health Board.
- The bowel screening programme is being rolled out gradually across the country. This staged approach is designed to
enable district health boards (DHBs) to prepare for the extra investigations and treatments that flow from a screening
programme.
- 18 DHBs are now part of the programme with the remaining two, Bay of Plenty and Northland, scheduled to join the
programme by December 2021.