A WAITING list for bowel cancer screening has topped 117 people, new figures have revealed.

Bowel Cancer UK has highlighted how many people are on the York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s list for a flexible sigmoidoscopy, with five people - or 4.3 per cent - waiting more than six weeks to be seen.

A flexible sigmoidoscopy is a procedure used to look inside the bowel and check for signs of cancer.

The figures compare Trusts across the north of England. The NHS standard is for no more than one per cent of patients to be waiting more than six weeks for either a flexible sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy - another key test to check for bowel cancer.

These tests can detect cancer at the earliest stage when it is more treatable. Nearly everyone diagnosed at the earliest stage of bowel cancer will survive but this drops significantly as the disease develops.

Thirty four hospitals in the north of England and Yorkshire and the Humber do not meet the NHS standard. Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust is performing the worst with 49.3 per cent of patients waiting six weeks or more for a flexible sigmoidoscopy.

Asha Kaur, of Bowel Cancer UK, said the 'worrying' waiting times “demonstrates the urgent need for the Government to make addressing this crisis a national priority”.

“If hospitals are expected to meet waiting time targets then they must be given the resources and capacity to enable them to meet these standards. It is crucial urgent progress is made as increasing demand for services is putting hospitals under unprecedented pressure because they simply do not have the capacity to meet this demand."

Work on a new endoscopy unit at York Hospital is expected to start shortly. A spokeswoman said: “The number of people being referred for diagnostic tests for bowel cancer has increased year on year and early detection is vitally important.”