Thousands of people in Lancashire who have been sent life-saving bowel cancer home testing kits are being encouraged to use it and return it.

A new NHS campaign, from Lancashire and South Cumbria Trust, aims to increase uptake of the home testing kit to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage when they are nine times more likely to survive.

The latest data shows the proportion of people choosing to participate in bowel screening nationally has increased to 70.3 per cent - the highest on record.

However, almost a third of people are not returning their test kits.

GP and cancer director for the trust, Dr Neil Smith said: “Bowel cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer and screening helps to find it before there are any noticeable symptoms and when it is easier to treat.

“The kits we use today are quicker to use than the previous bowel cancer screening home testing kit and people simply need to collect a tiny sample of poo using the plastic stick provided, pop it in the sample bottle, and send it free of charge to the NHS for tests in a laboratory.

“If you are sent an NHS bowel cancer home test kit, please complete and return it. It could save your life.”

Each month, the NHS posts out more than half a million free Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) kits for people to use in the privacy of their homes.

The FIT kit detects small amounts of blood in poo - that would not be visible to people - before someone may notice anything is wrong.

People aged 60 to 74 years who are registered with a GP practice and live in England are automatically sent a FIT kit every two years.

Data shows nearly 43,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK and more than 16,500 people die from it - more than 45 people per day.

The chances of surviving bowel cancer are much higher when it is found at an early stage.

Due to increased uptake of the FIT kit, more cancers are now being detected by the NHS than when the previous test was used.

The FIT kit also generates fewer false positives and finds more polyps - which can be removed by a colonoscopy and might otherwise develop into cancers.