Consolidated Standards
One of the main aims of quality assurance is to maintain minimum standards and continuously improve the performance of all aspects of bowel cancer screening in order to ensure that individuals have access to a high quality service regardless of where they live.
Consolidated standards bring together the quality requirements and performance measures for all aspects of the bowel cancer screenning programme. They provide a framework against which programme performance can be monitored and quality assured, helping to ensure that screening services are safe, effective and delivered consistently across Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (NI BCSP) follows nationally agreed bowel cancer screening standards. The programme uses these standards as a basis for quality assurance and monitoring within the programme.
NB: Due to restrictions of current NI systems reporting against some of these standards is currently not possible.
The following letter endorsing the standards above was circulated by the Chief Medical Officer in June 2019.
Standards for the Northern Ireland Bowel Screening Programme.
NB: NI is currently reviewing and updating these standards in line with the revised UK standards. Where necessary, the standards will be adapted to reflect local service delivery arrangements and reporting systems.
UK revised standards (1st April 2025):
Bowel cancer screening programme: standards – GOV.UK
Annual Reports