All 60 to 69-year-old people in England will be sent home-test kits by 2009 in a bid to improve early detection rates of bowel cancer.

The £37.5 million national home-screening programme for the disease will begin its first phase in April 2006 with the ultimate aim of testing two million people every two years.

The programme is the first of its kind in the UK and involves distributing Faecal Occult Blood tests, which research has shown can reduce the mortality rate of bowel cancer by 15%. Of those who get the disease, 90% survive if it is caught early enough.

Health minister Rosie Winterton said: "The NHS has already made significant progress in reducing deaths from bowel cancer, with mortality rates falling by 17% over the last ten years."

Home testing would, she added, help overcome the often embarrassing nature of the disease and thus aid the health service in their fight against it.

The programme will require five 'hubs' to analyse the large numbers of tests involved and Strategic Health Authorities have been invited to bid to provide the first wave of local screening centres.

In addition to those aged 60 to 69, people aged 70 and over will also be able to request a home testing kit.

Bowel (colorectal) cancer is a malignant (cancerous) growth that starts on the inside wall of the bowel. It can grow there for a relatively long time before spreading to other parts of the body. It can develop in any part of the large bowel, including the colon and rectum.

There are 30,000 new cases of the disease, the UK's second biggest cancer killer, each year and in 2003 more than 16,000 people died from the disease.

Although surgery is the main treatment for cancer of the large bowel, there have been a number of advances in drug treatments in recent years.

In July last year Merck launched Erbitux, a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer and its first cancer treatment.

Roche's new colon cancer treatment Avastin received its European approval in January this year and its NICE-recommended 'smart pill' for advanced bowel and breast cancer Xeloda was approved in March 2002.

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