3,500 wait for bowel cancer tests for over three months

More than 3,500 public patients are waiting over three months for a test to detect bowel cancer which private patients can access within 12 days.

Of this figure, 227 patients have waited more than a year, discrediting the Health Service Executive (HSE) target of no one waiting more than 13 weeks for what can be a vital diagnostic test.

The delays are against a backdrop of the HSE setting strict timelines for access to colonoscopies after the high profile and tragic death in October 2007 of mother- of-two Susie Long.