National industry's interest in colorectal cancer screening programmes.

The interest of the largest 200 British industries in developing and financing colorectal screening services for employees was determined. A standard questionnaire asked if the company would advertise screening supply names of employees to local hospitals and finance faecal occult blood testing. The reasons for rejection were noted. Eighty-six companies returned the questionnaire (43% response rate) of which 78 firms (39% of the total mailed) were prepared to advertise screening programmes at the workplace. A quarter of the companies were prepared to both advertise and release employee details. Companies willing to participate employed significantly more people (mean of 17,000 employees) than those rejecting screening (mean of 6100 employees, Mann-Whitney U test = 7, P < 0.05). Fifty-nine industries would consider financing screening, although only five made a definite decision to do so. All companies rejecting (36/36) were concerned about releasing employee information to hospitals. If screening does reduce mortality and community programmes are developed industry could and is prepared to advertise such programmes. If a partnership between hospitals and industry is developed, concerns about employee confidentiality needs to be addressed.