Dame Deborah James win as NHS lowers bowel cancer screening age from 60 to 50
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The NHS is lowering the bowel cancer screening age from 60 to 50 in a huge win for campaigner Dame Deborah James, reports claim. The journalist and podcast host led calls for the change before her death aged 40 in 2022. She helped raise millions of pounds under the Bowelbabe Fund for cancer research and, weeks before her passing, was given a damehood from Prince William for services to charity.
Dame James' mother Heather, 67, said Debs would be “grinning from ear to ear” at the decision to lower the bowel cancer screening age. It means four million people will be newly eligible to get screened earlier. The educator and journalist, from Woking, Surrey, was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer in 2016 and, despite her journey with the illness, helped raised more than £16million for research into it. She lived eight years with it, during which time the mum of two was praised for her charity work.
Her final social media message read: "Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo – it could just save your life.". Speaking from her home in Woking, Heather told The Sun: "Deborah will be up there grinning from ear to ear, jumping for joy. But I know she would want to urge anyone who gets a screening invite to take the test. She was all too aware that many people ignore the invite and put off their test, a decision that can prove fatal.".
