Your next poo could save your life

We are supporting a London-wide campaign to encourage more patients to do their free NHS bowel cancer screening home test, which checks if you could have bowel cancer.

People who are the right age are sent a free NHS FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test) kit every two years. You use it to collect a small sample of poo and post it back to an NHS lab.

The campaign by NHS London, “Your next poo could save your life”, urges more people to use their kit – a message we wholeheartedly endorse.

Screening can help prevent bowel cancer and find it at an early stage when it’s easier to treat. People who complete their screening are 25% less likely to die of bowel cancer.

The kits are for people with no symptoms and most people get the all-clear.

If you are aged 56, 58 (on or after 16 May 2022) or 60 to 74 and we have your correct address, you will be sent a kit every 2 years. Please use it. By April 2025, bowel cancer screening kits will be for everyone aged 50 to 74 in England.

To find out more and hear from other Londoners about their experience of bowel cancer screening, visit www.healthylondon.org/bcs If you have symptoms of bowel cancer which last for three weeks or more, please contact the practice and ask for an appointment.