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North East London Bowel Cancer Screening Centre

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK, affecting around 34,000 people a year. Around 16,000 people will lose their life to bowel cancer every year, making it the second biggest killer cancer. Around one in 20 women and one in 18 men will develop bowel cancer in their lifetime.

In order to tackle this growing problem, the Department of Health has developed a national bowel cancer screening programme.

Bowel cancer screening aims to detect bowel cancer at an early stage (in people with no symptoms), when treatment is more likely to be effective. Bowel cancer screening can also detect polyps. These are not cancers, but may develop into cancers over time. They can easily be removed, reducing the risk of bowel cancer developing. 

How the screening programme is organised

Programme hubs operate a national call and recall system to send out Faecal Occult Blood (FOB) test kits, analyse samples and dispatch results. Each hub is responsible for coordinating the programme in their area and works with up to 20 local screening centres. The local hub for London is St Marks.

The screening centres provide endoscopy services and specialist screening nurse clinics for people receiving an abnormal result. Screening centres are also responsible for referring those requiring treatment to their local hospital multidisciplinary team (MDT).

The local screening centre for North East London is Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Overview of Hub and Screening Centre Relationship

 

An overview of the hub and screening centre relationship

The North East London Bowel Cancer Screening Centre was opened in at Homerton Hospital in March 2007.

Homerton Hospital provides bowel screening services across the whole of North East London covering the populations of Barking and Dagenham, City and Hackney, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.

It provides this service by coordinating the specialist screening nurse clinics and colonoscopies as locally as possible for residents in North East London, by working in collaboration with The Royal London Hospital, Queens Hospital and Whipps Cross University Hospital.