We are working hard with our hospital teams to make sure that everyone who is overdue their screening or surveillance colonoscopy is invited as quickly and safely as possible. We are prioritising people with the most urgent clinical needs starting with participants who have had a result showing they need further investigations and are showing alarm symptoms that could indicate bowel cancer and participants that have had their screening test kit rejected during the pause of the programme.
The issuing of test kits and future appointments will be later than originally planned. For now we estimate it will take us many months to catch up the delayed participants. This is dependent on many unknown factors including our staff and colonoscopy capacity, willingness of participants to take up their offer of further investigations as well as any potential changes in the COVID-19 epidemiological situation.