Bowel cancer screening in England is to start earlier, at age 50, Public Health England has announced.

It said evidence showed that screening people at a younger age would allow more bowel cancers to be picked up at an earlier stage.
Currently, men and women in England are first invited for screening at the age of 60 and sent a home testing kit.

The change brings England in line with Scotland where bowel screening is automatically offered from 50. An independent committee of screening experts
recently recommended that bowel cancer screening in England should begin 10 years earlier than it does now.

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has now agreed to the change, and NHS England and Public Health England are deciding how the plan will be rolled out.
A new, improved test, called a faecal immunochemical home test kit or FIT, is being rolled out to everyone age 60 and over in the autumn.

In the future, the plan is to send this more accurate test to everyone in England from the age of 50.