THE recent deaths of TV presenter Lynda Bellingham and teenage fundraiser Stephen Sutton have been credited with a massive increase in patients being screened for bowel cancer in Worcestershire.

Speaking at a meeting of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, the organisation running Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital, on Wednesday, November 26, the organisation’s chief operating officer Stewart Messer said the amount of patients referred for bowel cancer screening had increased by 100 in October compared with the previous month.

Calling the increase “unprecedented”, Mr Messer said there was no way of knowing for sure what had caused the increase, but thought the two recent high-profile deaths may have prompted people to be more vigilant for the signs of the condition.

“There have been some recent celebrity deaths associated with bowel cancer,” he said. “We think that might have something to do with it.”

Birmingham teenager Stephen Sutton died in May aged just 19 while Lynda Bellingham, best known as the mother in the Oxo family adverts, succumbed to her disease in October.

Since Stephen’s death almost £5 million has been raised in his name for teenagers with cancer and he was awarded a posthumous MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours.

This month his father Andy, who himself recovered from bowel cancer twice, said doctors should have spotted his disease earlier.