NHS officials have dismissed a charity’s statistics showing people living in the north and south of the county are more likely to get bowel cancer.

Figures released by the charity Beating Bowel Cancer also reveal the areas have a higher-than-average rate of the disease compared to the rest of the country.

Figures in a new interactive map, pictured right, show in Cherwell that in 2008, 49.46 people per 100,000 of the population contracted the disease.

In south Oxfordshire that figure is 56.78 per 100,000. The national average is 46.07 per 100,000.

However, last night county health experts said the data should be looked at with caution.

The trust said according to the most recent three-year data there was “no significant difference” between the rate of bowel cancer in South Oxfordshire compared to England.

It refused to release figures but an NHS spokesman said: “Where incidence is higher this may be an indication that people are more aware of the signs to look out for and visit their GP.

“We would be more concerned about areas where there is a low incidence of bowel cancer because this may suggest that take up of screening and diagnosis is poorer.”

Last year NHS Oxfordshire, the county’s primary care trust, was given £600,000 by the government to spend on a bowel cancer screening programme over two years.

Everyone aged between 60 and 69, the most likely age group to contract bowel cancer, was sent kits, which include three ‘windows’ where three separate stool samples should be placed.

They are then sent back in a freepost envelope to a laboratory where the stool samples are checked for blood.

Between April 2010 and March 2011 more than 21,000 people out of 39,000 took up the offer and were adequately screened and as a result 57 cases of bowel cancer have so far been identified.

Firefighter Guy Dunkley, 46, from Farmoor, who was diagnosed with the disease last November and is still recovering, said: “I think people feel quite embarrassed about talking about it but I can’t stress enough how important it is to get yourself checked if you have any concerns.

“I can’t be a big enough advocate for getting yourself checked out early. It saved my life.”