Dame Deborah James had campaigned under the Bowelbabe Fund for cancer research and was even given a damehood from Prince William for services to charity in 2022
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.”
Now, approximately 850,000 50 and 52-year-olds in England will receive postal test kits. People will now receive a routine test every two years from the age of 50 to 74.
Bowel cancer is one of the most common forms of the disease in the UK, with more than 44,000 people diagnosed a year. Catching tumours quickly and before serious symptoms start is the best way to boost survival.
Writing in a newspaper column in 2018, during her cancer journey, Debs said: “For too long, we as a society have shied away from things that are a bit grim — poo, our bowels, the nasty things going on in there.
“You are never too young to be told you have bowel cancer, and so it’s doubly important we educate ourselves so we know the signs and symptoms to watch out for.”
And Heather said yesterday she felt her daughter’s “dream” had finally been achieved, albeit more than two years after her death. The mum continued: “I really believe our grandchildren can look forward to a future where cancer isn’t the killer that it is now — rather it will be a chronic condition people can live long lives with. That was always Deborah’s dream.”
