\n Just 56.2 per cent of 54-year-olds returned their screening kits in the year April 2024 to March 2025, compared to 73.5 per cent of those aged 70 to 74.\n<\/p>\n
\n Joanne, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer at 54 after completing her kit, said: “I had no symptoms when I received my test.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Not one.\n<\/p>\n
\n NHS urges people in their 50s to return bowel screening kits as 100 cancers found a week (Image: NHS Creative)\n<\/p>\n
\n “So I was really shocked when the results came back.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I\u2019m just glad I did the kit.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I don\u2019t know what would have happened if I hadn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It doesn\u2019t bear thinking about.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I want to make sure everyone else my age is completing theirs when they get one \u2013 it\u2019s so easy to do and for me it was life-changing.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Screening is for people without symptoms.\n<\/p>\n
\n Professor Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer, said: “People have extremely busy lives but we are concerned about the low numbers of people in their 50s returning their bowel screening kits.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Bowel cancer can develop without any symptoms, but catching it early saves lives.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Genevieve Edwards, Chief Executive at Bowel Cancer UK, said: “It only takes a few minutes to do at home, but those few minutes could make a life-changing difference. Don\u2019t put it off, complete your kit and return it as soon as you can.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The National Cancer Plan for England committed to delivering 17,000 earlier diagnoses by 2035 and saving almost 6,000 lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just 56.2 per cent of 54-year-olds returned their screening kits in the year April 2024 to March 2025,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}