AQW 7098/17-22

Ms Kellie Armstrong
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 17/09/2020
Answered On Date: 25/09/2020
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health for an update on when the bowel cancer screening programme will restart.

Answer:

As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the bowel cancer screening programme was paused from mid-March 2020. Restoration of all paused screening programmes is a priority for my Department.

In relation to bowel cancer screening, the immediate priority was to clear the backlog of patients waiting for diagnostic procedures (colonoscopy) following a positive screening test result. Consequently, Trusts recommenced colonoscopies from June and have made significant progress to date in clearing this backlog.

Routine bowel cancer screening invitations recommenced from the 17th of August through the issuing of testing kits.