CHAPLAIN'S BLOG: Bowel screening is just another great thing our NHS does

Now to avoid putting you off your breakfast, I will avoid the details except to say that to look at your lower bowel there has to be a thin tube with a camera inserted into your body. It was not something I was desperately looking forward to. Beforehand, you have to have an enema to get rid of the waste products in your body and then travel to the hospital for the camera. With the camera inside you have an amazing view of your colon on the TV screen next to you with all its twists and turns (if you want to look.) The procedure is quick and has only a little bit of tummy discomfort. And then you are done. But before you shout, “Too much information David!” I am telling you this because this is our amazing NHS. Who would have thought that we have a national scheme to check the bowels of everyone over a certain age. A national project which is free to hundreds of thousands of people with the result that fewer people will die of bowel cancer; and that those with the disease will be treated far earlier. And then we think of the other national schemes.

Immunisations for our children; breast screening; cervical screening; and the host of scans in pregnancy. All of these are designed to promote the health and quality of life for millions of us in the UK. This is what the NHS does; universal access, free at the point of delivery whether you are rich or poor; young or old. And from my one small experience of the bowel screening (with amazing staff by the way) to the many things I see day by day, the NHS is something of which to be rightly proud. I say this, I suppose, because many of us want to protect the NHS and keep its initial principles. In our politically changing nation, perhaps we would do well to keep a weather eye on any who seek to dismantle or downgrade this most sacred and valued marker of Britishness.