Being of a ‘certain age’, I have just received my faecal occult blood testing kit as part of the colorectal cancer screening programme. I must say, it’s all very well put together, with little spatulas and a set of intructions so simple and clear that a gynaecologist could follow them. It does feel odd, though, to find yourself examining your own motions for the first time in 62 years. It all seems a bit, I don’t know…French. And the next time my little granddaughter asks if we can play ‘pooh sticks’, I’ll get a mental image of those spatulas.

Actually, I’m almost hoping that the test produces a (false) positive result, so that I need a colonoscopy. I had to have one a few years ago (false alarm - diverticular disease), and I really enjoyed it. No, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t the ‘oscopy itself, it was the drugs - pethidine and medazolam…mmmmmmm. Although I was at medical school in London during the swinging sixties, the free love/drugs thing passed me by completely, and the only drug-induced highs I have ever experienced have involved being pissed, and even then, I just tend to get maudlin and start showing people pictures of my kids. The old i/v sedation though, that was something else. I didn’t notice the procedure itself, and if the gastroenterologist had seen something interesting down the scope and had decided to crawl in himself to get a better look, I don’t think I’d have noticed that either. My wife, who drove me home, tells me the stupid grin (mine, that is) lasted for several hours. I can quite understand how that sort of thing could get addictive, he said, stating the bleeding obvious.

Still, it’s good to have a national screening programme that involves men as well as women, I’d begun to think we didn’t count. Is there a ribbon for colon cancer, and if so, what colour is it? Still mustn’t get on to the subject of ribbons just now - that’s a whole rant in itself, and could be a useful filler for one of these blogs if I find myself without a topic.

And this inconsequential contribution has taken so long to complete, that the result of my screening test has, improbably, been posted back to me in less than a week. And it’s negative, which means I’ll have to look elsewhere for mood-altering substances. And of course, now I’m thinking to myself ‘it’s only a screening test though - with a 75% sensitivity, you could still have cancer’. Lucky old patients - they are happy when they get the ‘all clear’. Too much knowledge, and all that.

My son (who moved out, finally, about 12 years ago) received an invitation sent to our address today. It was from Life Line Screening, and was signed by Karen R Law RDMS, RDCS, RVT. Karen clearly felt that my son, a fit 32-year-old, was in the at-risk group for carotid atheroma, aortic aneurysm, asymptomatic atrial fibrillation and osteoporosis. They offered to free him from his intolerable burden of worry concerning these life-threatening conditions using ‘cutting edge’ ultrasound and ECG technology (and presumably DEXA scanning for the osteoporosis, although they didn’t go into details about that, presumably because they felt their target population - i.e. everyone with more money than sense - wouldn’t understand it).

Now I don’t know what RDMS, RDCS and RVT stand for, but I am sure they are bona fide qualifications and that Karen and her colleagues are capable of performing the scans they are offering. In fact, I quite admire people who spot a gap in the market and set out to fill it; or at least, I do if no-one gets hurt in the process.

However, although Matt is a sensible chap (how could it be otherwise, with me as his father?), and was about to consign his letter to the bin when I asked if I could have a look at it, these indiscriminate mailings do have their victims. There are plenty of worried well people out there who would be concerned to hear the story of Sidney Larcomb from Walsall, whose surgeon said that his narrowed carotid arteries were ‘a disaster waiting to happen’, and whose life was undoubtedly saved by responding to Karen’s timely offer of screening. Of course, for every Sidney Larcomb, there will be a hundred or more Mathew Burys, who were never at significant risk of any of these conditions in the first place. And it will be the NHS (‘your full results report will be posted to you so that you can share with your GP’) that has to pick up the fall-out from all the false positives.

I’ve blogged before on the topic of ‘whole-body MOT tests’ using CT, and the impending tightening-up of the ionising radiation legislation to regulate with these self-referral enterprises. Ultrasound doesn’t use ionising radiation, the equipment is relatively cheap and I assume that any Tom, Dick or Harry setting up a screening service is bound only by the regulations governing advertising and the sale of goods. Even so, I can’t help feeling that Life Line Screening are sailing pretty close to the wind if they are sending out indiscriminate mailshots of the type received by my son.

Still, vote for that nice Mr Cameron, and I’m sure he’ll put a stop to this sort of irresponsible free enterprise. Oh, wait a minute, he’s a Tory, isn’t he?