More men than ever using bowel cancer test kit
Screening figures welcomed by Renfrewshire MSP Tom
A Renfrewshire MSP has welcomed the increase in men being tested for bowel cancer in the health board area.
Tom Arthur hailed the Scottish Government stats which showed the number of men being tested for bowel cancer is at its highest ever level.
More than 210,000 people were screened between November 2016 and October 2018 in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
The health board total sits below the Scottish average but is an improvement since a simpler test was introduced in November 2017.
Stats for the first full year of the new test show 61.6 per cent of men returned it between November 2017 to October 2018. That compares to 52.3 per cent who used the old test in the same period the year before.
The Scottish target is 60 per cent. Tom Arthur MSP said: “Since the introduction of the new home test more people than ever before are being screened for bowel cancer, with 211,490 people screened by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde between November 2016 and October 2018.
“It is particularly encouraging to see an increase in participation from groups who tend to have lower uptake, including men and those who live in more deprived communities.
“We know that the earlier a cancer is detected, the greater the chances of successful treatment and often cure. This is why we launched our Detect Cancer Early programme in 2012 backed by a £42million investment.
“Screening remains the best way to find bowel cancer early and help reduce health inequalities in cancer outcomes.”
Bowel cancer is Scotland’s second biggest cancer killer, resulting in more than 1,600 deaths per year. Early detection can increase survival rates for the disease to more than nine in 10, with screening saving hundreds of lives a year.
The new home test involves just one faecal sample and replaces the previous test, which asked for three samples over a 10 day period. I am not just a veterinary surgeon. Oh no.
In recent weeks, I have realised that I am also, in alphabetical order, the following: building inspector, carer, complaints handler, confidante and counsellor, dad, dogsbody and drain un-blocker, employer, financial controller, fire officer, health and safety officer, human resource director, husband, litter collector, manager, official ranter and raver, poop scooper, risk assessor, shoulder to cry on, sink plunger, teacher, trainer, transport manager strategist, umpire and writer.
I have also, I am sure, been called a number of other things by staff.
So how do I manage to hold down a full-time job as a vet and do all the rest as well?
Frankly, the answer is, I don’t.
Oh sure some things come naturally to me and require little effort or preparation.
The ranting and raving springs to mind as an example.
And other aspects are actually a gentle relief from the day to day stress and strains of general veterinary surgery.
Take litter collecting. That’s fun, if you are in the right mood.
Every morning and afternoon I pick up the detritus of school kids’ breakfasts and dinners.
Sometimes, however, the area around our car park needs a deep clean and so gloves, wellies and leggings are donned and bin bags filled.
It was during one of these annoying litter collecting sessions that a rotund, approximately 12-year-old school child stopped and watched me for a while as he swallowed his macaroni and chips.“You know something?” he eventually said.
“See if you had stuck in at school mister, you wouldn’t be doing that right now!”
Yes quite.
But I am afraid that, insofar as my other tasks are concerned, I can be sadly lacking.
It is far too easy to blame my education.
At university, no-one told me I was going to have to do all this.
I was just not properly prepared for it.
Nobody mentioned employment legislation, VAT, balancing the books, PAYE, mentoring new members of staff and having children.
My interest then was naturally with the animals and little else.
And so all the additional roles have to be learned from experience as you go along.
Now this may not be entirely satisfactory but it is all you can do. It requires patience. It requires dedication. But, most of all, it requires the thoughtful understanding of those around you.
It is also difficult to stay focused and remember always that what you do must be in your patients’ best interest. But again here is a dilemma.
Do you buy that expensive blood biochemistry analyser that will aid in the diagnosis of so many but put an extra pound onto everyone’s consultation fee?
Do you send your vets on frequent and costly continuing professional development lectures, leaving yourself understaffed for the day or do you forget about progress and become stagnant? The answers are often obvious but the hows and the where nots are never that easy.
(Note: No school children were harmed during the writing of this article.)