Alignment With Australia’s Bowel Screening Programme - What Will The Government’s Promise Actually Mean?

The Federation of Women’s Health Councils (FWHC) has noted the Government’s decision to lower the age of eligibility for bowel screening tests to 58 years based on advice from the Ministry of Health. According to today’s announcement, this decision is seen as a significant first step to align NZ’s screening rate for bowel cancer with Australia’s screening programme which is 45-74 years.

On the face of it this seems laudable although no time frame has been specified to achieve this goal. It is dependent on funding and access to additional colonoscopy resource becoming available. It may be years.

However FWHC believes that the government’s promise to align NZ’s bowel screening with Australia’s, must not only offer the same age range, it must apply the same threshold to trigger a ‘positive’ result from the screening test. “The government is silent on the latter and yet it matters” says Barbara Robson, Co-convenor of the Federation.

“It continues to be our understanding that NZ’s positivity threshold, set at the beginning of the bowel screening programme, is twice that of Australia’s. This is a significant difference if the incidence of bowel cancer across the two countries is about the same” says Ms Robson.

“The lack of discussion about the positivity threshold is worrisome and further concerning as NZ’s programme has not yet been fully evaluated. Ms Robson says “We need clarity on what the promise of alignment with Australia’s bowel screening programme will actually mean”.

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