Bowel Screening

About the screening programme

The Scottish Bowel Cancer Screening Programme will invite all men and women between the ages of 50 and 74 years who are registered with a GP. It is therefore vital that you inform your doctor’s surgery of your latest address so we can send you regular invitations for screening.

How will the screening programme be run?

All men and women aged between 50 and 74 will receive a Faecal Occult Blood test (FOBt) kit by post to their home address. The kit is completed at home and returned to the national Bowel Screening Centre for Scotland, which is based in Dundee at King’s Cross Hospital.

The centre tests all the completed screening kits and then notifies:

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  all participants of their results

  
  


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  all GP practices of positive FOBt results

  
  


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  all NHS Boards of positive results requiring further investigations.

  
  

If the overall result of screening is positive, then the individual will be referred to their local hospital for further assessment and may be offered a colonoscopy, if appropriate.

You can find out more about this in Test results: What happens next?