Dear Department of Health,

We are students from the Hong Kong Baptist University, working on a project for a General Education course taught by Dr. Simon Wang. We wish to learn more about the colorectal cancer screening program. Our main objective for this project is to assess the effectiveness of the colorectal cancer screening program by investigating the problems we have noticed. I refer to the web page, https://www.colonscreen.gov.hk/en/public... on the CRC screening program.

Here are some of the questions we hope the department of health to answers under the Code on Access to information.

1. How many people have signed up for the colorectal; cancer program since it began in 2018?

2. How many doctors have been engaged in this program to meet the patients before and after the tests? How much did it cost to pay the doctors? Please provide the latest figures.

3. Given that the main purpose for the doctors to meet the patients before the test is to check if the patient is medically fit to take the test.
(https://www.colonscreen.gov.hk/en/public...), please provide the number of patients that have been found to be unsuitable for taking the tests.

4. https://www.colonscreen.gov.hk/en/public... Could you provide a spreadsheet to present the data here? Please also let us know if the department plans to share the data through data.gov.hk (https://data.gov.hk/en-datasets/provider...)

5. Please explain why patients with certain symptoms should be excluded from the stool test? What are the consequences for these patients to take the test anyway? It seems that the consultation meetings with the doctors are unnecessary; such meetings could be done by nurses, or anyone interested could send in the stool samples directly. Please explain why private doctors are needed in the cancer screening process instead of nurses. Please share your views on the proposed arrangements. (Nurses to screen the patients or collecting samples without consultations)

To conclude, it is hoped that the questions mentioned above could help us review and further discuss how the colorectal screening program could be improved. We are looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you!

Yours faithfully,
Kathy Li, Kiki Lau (students from Hong Kong Baptist University)