🇬🇧 UK Jul 1, 2026 · Phil Whitaker

I thought I might be saving a patient’s life. What if the opposite were true?

New Statesman UK

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I received a letter from the British Columbia Colon Screening Programme (BCCSP) recently. Like the NHS in the UK, this programme recommends faecal immunochemical tests (Fit) – stool samples that check for microscopic traces of blood – every two years to screen 50- to 75-year-olds for bowel cancer. They’d been trying without success to get feedback from one of my patients who had been referred for a colonoscopy following a positive Fit– could I give them information instead? I knew why they’d hea