A home kit through the post, one sample, two minutes. Proven to reduce deaths, and around a third are never returned.
NHS screening is free — this page explains it, we do not sell it
Honest about who benefits and who may be harmed
A GP to talk through a result, a recall or a missed invitation
Your NHS records in the room, with your consent
Talk it through with a GP
Screening itself is free on the NHS. If you want a result explained, have been recalled, or missed an invitation and are not sure what to do, a 20-minute appointment with a GMC-registered GP is £40. Same-day appointments are usually available, 6am to 10pm, seven days a week.
Private GP care led personally by Dr Mohammad Zubair Khan, GMC 7563469.
Care led personally by Dr Khan
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You do not apply for this. A kit is posted to you automatically, to the address your GP practice holds, once you reach the starting age.
The starting ages have been moving, so if you are in your early fifties and have not had one, that may simply be timing rather than an error. You can check with the screening helpline for your nation.
You stop being invited automatically at 74. You do not stop being eligible.
You can request a kit every two years by calling the bowel screening helpline, and you should, because bowel cancer risk continues to rise with age. This is one of the least publicised facts in NHS screening, and a great many people simply assume the programme has finished with them.
A strong family history, Lynch syndrome, familial adenomatous polyposis, or long-standing inflammatory bowel disease put you in a separate surveillance pathway with colonoscopies rather than home kits. That is arranged through a specialist, not through the screening programme.
A small plastic stick and a sample bottle arrive in the post with instructions. You collect a tiny amount from one bowel motion, put the stick back in the bottle, and post it in the pre-paid envelope.
One sample. One time. It takes about two minutes.
The current kit is much simpler than the old one, which needed samples from three separate occasions and put a lot of people off. If your impression of this test dates from a decade ago, it is out of date.
The FIT test — faecal immunochemical test — detects tiny amounts of blood in the stool that you cannot see. Polyps and early cancers bleed intermittently long before they cause any symptoms.
Results usually arrive within two weeks.
A camera examination of the large bowel, with sedation offered. The preparation — a strong laxative the day before — is the part people find hardest, and it is worth knowing that in advance.
Polyps found during the test are usually removed there and then, which is the whole point: this is one of the few screening programmes that can prevent a cancer rather than merely detect one.
Bowel cancer is one of the commonest cancers in the UK and one of the most treatable when found early.
Found at the earliest stage, more than nine in ten people are alive five years later. Found at the latest stage, that figure falls to around one in ten. Very few interventions in medicine shift the odds that far.
Most bowel cancers begin as polyps — small growths that take years to turn malignant. A colonoscopy triggered by an abnormal FIT result removes those polyps before they ever become cancer.
That is a genuinely unusual thing for a screening programme to do. Most screening finds disease earlier; this one can stop it happening.
We are a private clinic, and we could sell you a blood panel instead. The honest position is that this free kit has better evidence behind it than anything we offer, and the highest-value thing we can do on a page like this is tell you to send it back.
Bowel screening is one of only a small number of screening programmes shown in randomised trials to reduce deaths from the cancer it screens for.
Reviewed against UK National Screening Committee, NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme and NICE guidance current at the date shown above.
Around a third of kits are never returned. That is the central problem with this programme — not its accuracy, not its availability, but the number of them that go in the bin.
Asking whether they returned it, and helping them if not, is one of the more useful things you can do for someone in their seventies. It is also worth telling them they can keep requesting kits after 74.
Request a kit every two years by calling the helpline. You will not be invited, but you remain eligible.
This is the most important thing on the page after "send it back".
Screening is for people with no symptoms. If you have symptoms, you need assessment now, not a screening kit.
A normal screening result from last year does not exclude a cancer that has developed since. Cancers arising between screening rounds are a recognised phenomenon, and "but my test was clear" is a well-documented reason people delay.
For bowel screening, the balance of benefit to harm is more clearly favourable than for most screening programmes. That is not true of everything the NHS screens for, and we say so on the pages where it is not.
Here, the evidence is good, the harms are modest, and the main problem is that people do not do it.
You do not have to do anything — it is posted to you automatically once you reach the starting age, to the address your GP holds.
If you have moved recently, check your practice has your current address.
Yes, and this happens constantly. Call the bowel screening helpline for your nation and ask for a replacement.
Nobody will think anything of it — it is a routine request.
Less than you think. One small sample, collected on a plastic stick, sealed into a bottle. Two minutes.
The old test needed three separate samples and was genuinely off-putting. If that is what you are remembering, the current one is much easier.
Because that is exactly who it is for. The test is designed to find cancers and polyps before they cause anything at all.
By the time bowel cancer produces symptoms, it is usually more advanced and harder to treat.
Probably not. Most people with an abnormal result turn out to have polyps, haemorrhoids or another benign cause.
It means a colonoscopy is needed to find out — and if polyps are found, removing them prevents a future cancer.
A camera examination of the bowel, with sedation offered. Most people find the procedure itself easier than they expected.
The preparation the day before — a strong laxative — is the difficult part, and it is worth planning a day at home for it.
No — and this catches almost everybody out. Automatic invitations stop at 74, but you remain eligible.
Call the helpline and request a kit every two years. Risk rises with age, so this matters more, not less.
No. Get assessed now. A clear screening result does not exclude something that has developed since.
Symptoms and screening are separate pathways, and treating a past normal result as reassurance is a recognised cause of delayed diagnosis.
No. There is nothing on the private market that improves on this, and anything sold as an alternative to bowel screening should be treated with suspicion.
The free kit has better evidence behind it than any blood panel we could offer you.
It might. A strong family history or a known genetic condition puts you in a separate surveillance pathway with colonoscopies rather than home kits.
That is worth raising with a GP rather than assuming the standard programme covers you.
Clinically reviewed by Dr Mohammad Zubair Khan, GMC 7563469
Last reviewed
August 30, 2026
On this page
Ongoing
Time to be seen
Appointment length
Your NHS record in the room
Written treatment plan
Told when a test isn’t needed
Cost
Same day, usually
20 minutes
Yes, with your consent
Included
Yes, and told why
£40 for 20 minutes
Varies by practice
Typically 10 minutes
Yes, your full record
Not routinely
Usually
Free
Same day
Often 10 to 15 minutes
Usually not
Sometimes charged
Varies by provider
Often a subscription
Same-day access is usually available, from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week. You choose a time that suits you rather than waiting on hold at 8am.
Yes. Care is led personally by Dr Mohammad Khan, so you are not passed between clinicians. Continuity is the point of a small practice: someone who knows your history and is listening attentively rather than working through a checklist.
Yes, with your consent. We can access your Summary Care Record during the consultation, so your current medications, allergies and significant history are in the room. That means fewer questions you have already answered elsewhere, and safer prescribing.
No. We are not here to replace GPs, only to support them. Your NHS practice remains responsible for your ongoing care, and with your consent we write to them after the consultation. We are useful when you need to be seen sooner, or want more time than a standard appointment allows.
Twenty unhurried minutes and a comprehensive assessment. A written treatment plan is included, along with any prescription, sick note or referral letter arising from the consultation, at no extra charge.
£40 for 20 minutes, self-pay. Membership is optional and never required. Priced for fairness, because we are not here to charge extortionate amounts for access to a doctor.
It means the diagnosis can usually be made from your history and photographs, and that treatment can be arranged safely without examining you. Where a condition is not marked treatable online, it is because examination is the diagnosis — listening to a chest, feeling an abdomen, examining an ear or a joint — or because a procedure or device is needed.
Yes, where there is a genuine bacterial infection — cellulitis, impetigo, bacterial urine infections, confirmed strep throat. We will also frequently tell you that you do not need one. Most sore throats, coughs, colds and earaches are viral, and an antibiotic gives you the side effects with none of the benefit.
If your problem turns out to be genuinely outside what we can do remotely, the doctor will tell you straight away, point you to the right service, and refund your fee in full. We would rather do that than fill twenty minutes to justify the charge.
Call 999 or go to A&E — do not book an online appointment and do not wait for a reply to an email. For urgent problems that are not emergencies, NHS 111 is available 24 hours a day, online or by phone, and can direct you to the right service.
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