Impact of general practice endorsement on the social gradient in uptake in bowel cancer screening.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is a socioeconomic gradient in the uptake of screening in the English NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP), potentially leading to inequalities in outcomes. We tested whether endorsement of bowel cancer screening by an individual's general practice (GP endorsement; GPE) reduced this gradient.

Methods

A cluster-randomised controlled trial. Over 20 days, individuals eligible for screening in England from 6480 participating general practices were randomly allocated to receive a GP-endorsed or the standard invitation letter. The primary outcome was the proportion of people adequately screened and its variation by quintile of Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Results

We enrolled 265,434 individuals. Uptake was 58.2% in the intervention arm and 57.5% in

SUBMITTER: Raine R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4742577 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature