BURY people are being urged to find out more about bowel cancer screening.

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is inviting patients, staff, public and Trust members to attend a free talk titled 'Pounds, polyps and sense' on Thursday May 12, from 1pm to 2pm at the Education Centre at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury.

Bowel cancer is a general term for cancer that begins in the large bowel.

Depending on where the cancer starts, bowel cancer is sometimes called colon or rectal cancer.

It is one of the most common types of cancer diagnosed in the UK, with around 40,000 new cases diagnosed every year.

About one in every 20 people in the UK will develop bowel cancer during their lifetime.

The three main symptoms of bowel cancer are blood in the stools, changes in bowel habit (such as to more frequent, looser stools) and abdominal tummy pain.

However, these symptoms are very common and most people with them do not have bowel cancer.

Bowel cancer screening plays an important part in the fight against bowel cancer because it can help detect the cancer before it causes obvious symptoms, which increases the chances of surviving the condition.

The screening is carried out by taking a small stool sample and testing it for the presence of blood that isn’t visible. This is known as the faecal occult blood test.

Dr Roger Prudham, consultant gastroenterologist and Deputy Medical Director at The Pennine Acute Trust (pictured), who will be giving the talk, said: “Undertaking screening for bowel cancer is one of the most effective things any of us can do for our health.

"There is evidence from other parts of the world and increasingly from the NHS bowel cancer screening programme that the incidence of bowel cancer is beginning to decline. This is a major achievement and of all of the challenges we face in tackling cancer, to me this is one of the easiest.”

The event is free and is one of a series of ‘Medicine for Members’ events arranged to give the public and the Trust’s public members a greater insight into their local hospital and the services it provides.

To book your place contact Angela Greenwood on 01706 517302 or email ft.membership@pat.nhs.uk