Cancer screening programs

The BreastScreen Australia program is a national free breast cancer screening program. Women, and people with breasts, aged 50 to 74 should be screened every two years.

Useful resources

The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) aims to reduce deaths from bowel cancer by detecting the early signs of the disease. Eligible Australians complete a free, simple test that is done at home every two years. The program is available to Australians aged 50 to 74 who have been identified from Medicare records.

From 1 July 2024, people aged 45 to 49 can join the program and screen for free by requesting their first free kit be mailed to them. All eligible people aged 45 to 74.

The program now operates two models to help increase screening participation:

1. mail-out model – kits are mailed directly to eligible people by the National Cancer Screening Register
2. alternative access to kits model – healthcare providers give kits directly to eligible people, explain why the test is important and demonstrate how to do it.

A hot zone policy exists for hotter areas of Australia, where participants are sent the kit in the cooler months of the year. For participants in hot zones, practitioners can still give them a kit if they see a clinical benefit.

The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program is a Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care program and is supported by the National Cancer Screening Register. 

Useful resources ​

The National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) aims to reduce illness and death from cervical cancer. Women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 74 years of age are invited to have a Cervical Screening Test every five years.

Self-collection

You may be more familiar with the term Pap smear. But the cervical screening test has replaced this and is more effective, with a cervical screening self-collection option now available to eligible participants.

Self-collection allows patients to take their own vaginal sample for HPV testing, offering a more accessible and equally effective method for detecting potential issues such as CIN2+, adenocarcinoma in situ, and oncogenic HPV compared to the conventional clinician-administered test. For more information about self-collection, visit the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer’s (ACPCC’s) FAQ on self-collection or the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care’s page on self-collection.

To address inequity and additional barriers to screening two new self-collection campaigns have been launched, Own It and the Screen Me. The ‘Own It’ campaign aims to promote patient choice in cervical screening, particularly the option of HPV self-collection for women and people with a cervix who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, multicultural, LGBTQIA+, living in regional or remote areas. The Screen Me Campaign is designed for women and people with a cervix living with a disability.

Useful resources