BBC's George Alagiah Battles Stage 4 Cancer

BBC Newsreader George Alagiah has less than a 10 percent change of surviving the next five years as his bowel cancer is at stage 4.

George was first diagnosed with the disease in 2014 and underwent 17 rounds of chemotherapy and five operations after the cancer had spread to his liver and lymph nodes.

The 62-year old discovered that the cancer had returned just before Christmas 2017.

George says that whilst he acknowledges his cancer cannot be cured now, he might have been luckier if he’d lived in Scotland.

In Scotland, bowel cancer screenings happen every year from the age of 50, whereas they don’t start until 60 in the UK.

In an interview with The Sunday Time, George says: “Had I been screened, I could have been picked up. Had they had screening at 50, like they do in Scotland ... I would have been screened at least three times and possibly four by the time I was 58 and this would have been caught at the stage of a little polyp: snip, snip ...

"We know that if you catch bowel cancer early, survival rates are tremendous. I have thought: why have the Scots got it and we don’t?”

George is NOW supporting the campaign by Bowel Cancer UK and Beating Bowel Cancer to make cancer screening available to everyone in England from 50.