CHESHIRE residents aged 60 to 74 will soon benefit from a new bowel cancer screening test after health chiefs approved plans to improve the service.

At a meeting on Monday, the board of directors at Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust approved a business case to improve the Cheshire Bowel Cancer Screening programme – which runs across the county.

It will mean that the existing test will be replaced by the more advanced Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT), which was made available by the NHS in November 2017.

“I think it is great to see that we are going ahead of the curve,” said Chris Oliver, chief operating officer at the trust.

The new FIT home test kit is more accurate than the old guaiac test, and the trust hopes it will be easier for patients to use.

Mark Wilde, divisional general manager at Mid Cheshire Hospitals, told directors the expanded service is expected to rake in £435,000 income and that there will be ‘no cost burden’ on the trust.