The Government’s announced the roll out of a screening programme to detect one of the country’s biggest cancer killers.

Bowel cancer is the second most common fatal cancer among men and women.

The screening programme will go live in 2012 and will target 60 to 69 year olds.

CEO of the National Cancer Screening Service Tony O’Brien says it will have a big impact.

“We can achieve more through this type of screening for this population, than we’re doing with our existing screening for the populations that benefit from BreastCheck and CervicalCheck” he said.

“What we’re looking for by-and-large is precancerous changes that we can actually intervene” he added.