Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Health Minister Simeon Brown. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The Prime Minister won't commit to a date to lower the age for free bowel cancer screening further, but says the government is still trying to get it down to 50.
From Monday, free bowel screening will be available for people aged 58 and over in Auckland, Northland, and the South Island.
The age for free screening will drop for the rest of the North Island in March next year.
However, a charity boss says the changes would help a 10th of those National promised to help in the election campaign.
Bowel Cancer New Zealand chief executive Peter Huskinson told Morning Report the announcement was a "small step" towards the drop to 50 that was promised.
"This is a race against time. 400 Kiwis every year in that 45-60 age group are getting bowel cancer with zero screening protection and only for one damning reason, is that we're Kiwis rather than Australians," Huskinson said.
The home test has the promise to be a real game changer, he said.
"It was definitely the case that colonoscopy capacity is very tight. We know that waiting times are too long, but that change is so significant that I think the critical thing is for the government to use that change and announce when it's going to take the remaining step to do the other nine tenths of what it promised to do before the election."
Huskinson said the at home test means people who don't need a colonoscopy won't be clogging up the wait list, and people with negative results will receive them faster.
Christopher Luxon told Morning Report he couldn't commit to a date for when New Zealand matches Australia's free screening age as promised.
"That is very much what we are focused on, trying to match the Australian age of 50," Luxon said.
He said the government would, alongside reducing the free screening age to 58, expand colonoscopies by an extra 7100 over the coming year and introduce a new nation-wide pathway called the FIT for Symptomatic test. The test uses a stool sample to check for traces of blood - an early warning sign of bowel cancer.
The FIT for Symptomatic pathway has already been launched in Waikato and will be introduced in Counties Manukau, Waitematā, Hawke's Bay over the next two months, and then nation-wide next year.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
