While there's a national bowel cancer screening programme, people with strong family histories of colorectal cancer are usually diverted to more active colonoscopy surveillance.

Research using Swedish data has found that perhaps the familial risk should be applied to families where someone has been discovered to have just polyps. It could be a way of identifying high risk individuals before they get into trouble, especially the growing group of young people who, while they don't qualify for the national screening program, are being diagnosed with later stage colorectal cancer needing major surgery and chemo.