If you have recovered from cancer we would encourage you to take part in any screening opportunities offered to you. If you are currently having cancer treatment or are living with cancer ask your doctor or nurse whether any screening test appointments that you are offered are helpful for you.
You may find the information on this page about screening and early detection helpful, please share information with your family and friends to encourage them to take up screening and be body aware.
What is screening?
Screening is a way of identifying healthy people who may have an increased risk of getting cancer, or may have developed a cancer but not have symptoms of this. The NHS offers a range of screening, the aim being to offer screening to the people who are most likely to benefit from it.
Screening means testing people for early stages of a disease. This is before they have any symptoms, for screening to be useful the tests:
- need to be reliable at picking up cancers
- overall must do more good than harm to people taking part
- must be something that people are willing to do
- screening tests are not always perfect and do have some risks.
- the screening programme should also be good value for money for the NHS.
Screening tests can be done in different ways for different types of cancer sometimes this involve an X-ray test, a swab or a sample of your poo.
Screening results
If you get a normal result (negative result) after a screening test, this means you are at low risk of having the condition. This does not mean you will never develop the condition in the future, just that you are low risk at this time. If you have a higher-risk result (positive result), it means you may have the condition that you've been tested for. You will be offered further tests to confirm if you have the condition. You can then be offered treatment, advice and support. Finding out about a problem early can mean that treatment is more effective. However, screening tests are not perfect and they can lead to difficult decisions about having further tests or treatment.
You can also watch animations about NHS screening in the link below:
- female lifetime NHS screening pathway
- male lifetime NHS screening pathway
- Public health England have supplied easy read resources click here to downloaded for free
For more information about breast screening, cervical screening or bowel cancer screening, contact your GP, who should receive a copy of your results. You can also contact your local breast screening unit, or call the bowel cancer screening helpline on 0800 707 6060.
