Course description

The aim of this module is to help nurses to consider the risk of colorectal cancer and to review what outcomes screening and early diagnosis of the disease may offer the patient. Understanding the lifestyle origins of the disease and why diagnosis sometimes occurs quite late in its progression highlight the importance of screening.

Don't forget that you do not have to complete our two-hour learning modules all in one go. Tailor your learning to fit into your busy schedule by undertaking one or two sections at a time. You can stop and save your learning at any point and pick up where you left off when you return.

Learning aims and intended outcomes

• Summarise the threat that colorectal cancer poses and indicate why it is diagnosed so late in many cases
• Explore the health advice implications of known colorectal cancer risk factors that people should be alerted to, as they examine whether or not they are living healthy lives
• Understand the Dukes' system for staging colorectal cancer disease progression
• Outline screening measures that can help identify colorectal cancer earlier and inform patients how to supply appropriate faecal specimens for laboratory analysis
• Describe the benefits of the NHS bowel screening programme as a more strategic response to colorectal cancer diagnosis and treatment