Health Minister Shane Reti says lowering the age for bowel screening was likely to happen "within the next year or so". Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
The government is refusing to put a timeframe on meeting its pre-election promise to lower the age for free bowel screening, with the first pilot now finished.
A two-year Waikato pilot for 50- to 74-year-old Māori and Pasifika has just ended, while other programmes in Tairāwhiti and MidCentral have another year to run.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Thursday refused to commit to the government moving to lower the age for bowel screening in the current term.
However, Health Minister Shane Reti said it was still "under active consideration", and likely to happen "within the next year or so", pending the results of the pilots.
Questioned on why the government did not extend funding to continue the Waikato programme or roll it out more widely, he said the pilot had come "a natural end".
"There's no findings from the pilot, it's just finished. We've got the results from the other two pilots to take into account as well. So when we're informed by that, we can decide how to reduce the bowel screening age."
Reti conceded screening did save lives, but insisted it was important to ensure it was correctly targeted.
"How do you target that? What areas do you go to first? There's a lot things we would want to do to get the best return, the best clinical outcome. That's why we did the pilots."
Any screening programme has to be implemented carefully on the basis of robust evidence, with good IT support.
In a statement, National Public Health Service deputy national director Matt Hannant said Budget 2022 included funding to lower the eligible starting age for bowel screening from 60 to 50 years old for Māori and Pacific people.
"An initial set of learning pilots were required to evaluate how best to implement age extension, prior to any further decisions being made regarding ongoing funding," he said.
"Health NZ has provided advice and information, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, to the Minister based on insights from the 'pilots' and integrating information, evidence and modelling from an academic partner that sets out age extension options and associated public health benefits for the provisioned funding."
He said those options were "under active consideration".
It was appropriate that the two-year Waikato pilot had ended as planned given the age for bowel screening would be extended in the future, he said.
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