23 November 2017

Beating Bowel Cancer has released the Community Bowel Screening Volunteers Project Outcomes Report.

This report outlines the impact of the model where Beating Bowel Cancer train volunteers to go in to GP practices to phone people who have recently been invited for bowel screening, but haven’t taken part. After explaining why it’s so important to do the screening kit and how to do it, if consent is given a new kit is ordered for the patient on their behalf. The outcomes in the report are higher than even optimistically anticipated compared to similar projects of its kind. Key outcomes include:

• An average annual increase of bowel screening rates in participating practices of at least 6.5%
• Almost 1200 conversations had about the importance of bowel screening and early diagnosis with previous non-responders
• 812 kits sent out as a result of volunteer conversations (which is 70% of conversations ending positively, with consent confirmed to send out a new kit)
• 33% of those people who were sent a new kit completed it; 13% still haven’t after 14 weeks, and the other 54% are still within the 14 week potential completion window
• At least two cases where high risk polyps have been removed at colonoscopy as a result of volunteer conversations (it’s likely to be double this for the whole project based on the data)

Now that Beating Bowel Cancer can demonstrate the clear impact of the project they are looking to build on these results and expand the work into new areas.

Download the Report

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