Professor Glen Doherty

If their sample is positive, then they get sent to someone like me to have a colonoscopy.

Yeah, I think it's certainly a barrier to screening is that people don't like the idea of doing one of these stool tests.

But so part of the reason of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month is to talk to people about it and really make them aware of the benefits of bowel cancer screening.

A lot of people with bowel cancer will be walking around, they won't have any symptoms.

And for people who don't have symptoms, then, you know, it can take a long time for that diagnosis to be made.

There's also the opportunity with screening that you can identify these things called polyps in the colon, which are kind of pre-cancer entities, which if you leave them alone, some of them will develop into cancer over time.

And so that's why...

Yeah, find and then we can remove those during the course of a colonoscopy, which is much easier than the treatment that would be required.

If they went on to develop into cancer, then they require surgery and sometimes chemotherapy and other sort of treatments.

Okay.

So they'll be contacted by one of the nurses who works with the bowel screening programme.

And then they'll be offered an appointment for a colonoscopy, usually within a couple of weeks.

And they'll be given information about the procedure itself.

The things that people are frightened of with colonoscopy, they're frightened about the bowel preparation.

So you obviously have to take medication that sort of cleanses or flushes out the colon before you come for the procedure.

That's a drink, is it?

That's a drink, yeah.

Yeah, and it's a bit unpleasant, but actually it's not as bad as a lot of people think it's going to be.

Yeah, yeah.

So it really is, it flushes out the colon, but the medication is designed in such a way that it doesn't make you dehydrated.