Evaluation of English Bowel (Colorectal) Cancer Screening Pilot

The research and development directorate at the Department of Health commissioned an independent evaluation of the UK Pilot, which ran from 2000-2002. There was a single study of both the English and Scottish sites conducted by a multi-disciplinary evaluation team.

The evaluation team produced annual reports for three years. The reports were made available to the Pilot Steering Group (the group which is overseeing the pilot) and the National Screening Committee to help to decide whether to introduce bowel cancer on a national level. The final report - 1716Kb PDF and its supplementary report were published in July 2003.

The report into the second round of the English bowel cancer screening pilot was published in August 2006.

The task of the evaluation team was to

• describe the context, processes and mechanisms of NHS screening for bowel cancer, including organisational and management structures, infrastructure and communications strategy

• measure acceptability to users and health service providers, and the influence of socio-demographic and psychosocial variables on uptake

• quantify intermediate outcomes of screening and to compare these with trial data so that long-term outcome in relation to mortality reduction can be inferred

• use information on costs and effectiveness obtained in the pilots to refine previous estimates of cost-effectiveness of FOBT screening in the UK population

• describe and quantify the impact of the screening programme on symptomatic services both in primary and secondary care

• make recommendations on the conduct of NHS screening (including QA protocols) should evaluation of the pilots make this appropriate.

A separate study focusing on potential issues for ethnic populations associated with the introduction of CRC was published in July 2003. This study was commissioned by the Policy Research Programme at the Department of Health as an addition to the main evaluation of the UK Colorectal Cancer Screening Pilot.Ethnicity: UK Colorectal Cancer Screening Pilot - Final Report (PDF 4.2Mb)