Fewer than 40% of those eligible avail of free bowel screen

Fewer than 40% of eligible people have availed of the State’s free bowel screening service, it has emerged.

BowelScreen clinical director, Prof Diarmuid O’Donoghue, said it is crucial that the uptake of the National Bowel Screening Programme’s free home test is increased.

“BowelScreen’s latest figures show how the programme is saving lives. To date, it has detected 718 cancers and removed almost 19,000 pre-cancerous growths,” he said.