Follow-up to Written Question E-002958-16 on European guidelines for quality assurance in colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis

Follow-up to Written Question E-002958-16 on European guidelines for quality assurance in colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis

The Commission reply to Written Question E-002958-2016 states that;it appears that there are currently population-based screening programmes at national level for colorectal cancer in 15 Member States, population based regional screening programmes in 4 Member States, and in 9 Member States no programmes exist for the moment.”

However, according to a recent report in GUT*, only France and the UK have so far been the most successful in providing screening for the recommended age groups, seven countries are seemingly making good progress. Few Member States have very recently started. Screening has unfortunately stopped without plans for full implementation in several other countries, many have made no plans to implement systematic screening of their population and several more show no evidence of any screening

It is also to be noted that The EU Guidelines on CRC screening are exceptionally valuable but ongoing support is also essentially if the guidelines are to be successfully implemented in all European countries.

What is the Commission doing to ensure that population-based screening programmes at national level also cover those Member States whose citizens currently do no benefit from such a programme?

(*reference: Schreuders EH, et al. Gut 2015;64:1637–1649.doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2014-309086);