Bowel Cancer Screening Kit.

We arrived home from holiday early this evening to find a pile of mail on the doormat – including one expected birthday card and two unexpected ones. The first was from Sis (who spelt my name wrong - but don't worry, I'll have my revenge) and the other two were from Jnr (who’s not generally good with cards) and the Bowel Cancer Screening Service. This last one kindly informed me that, due to my advancing years, they would not be sending me any more. Apparently they will no longer consider my life worth saving.

Being fair to them, as an avid follower of such radio programmes as “More or Less” and “Inside Health,” I am well aware that, the older the population being tested, the greater the problem of false positives for this particular test. While, at first sight, it might seem that a few false positive results might be a trivial matter, there is a price to pay; the individual concerned will suffer the worry, a battery of possibly unpleasant, lengthy, expensive and unreliable tests which may, in turn, be followed with unnecessary, unpleasant, lengthy and expensive treatment which may also be damaging to his or her health.

Then we have the problems of false negatives . . . . .

Doctor Margaret McCartney, co-presenter of “Inside Health” and author of “The Patient Paradox” is a strong advocate of only using screening that is of proven benefit to the recipients of the service and a vigorous campaigner against unnecessary testing. Although she sometimes comes across as an obsessive sceptic. I'm with her on this.