AFTER nearly losing his life to a burst aneurysm, John Foley is urging everybody eligible to take up screening for the condition.

The latest figures from Public Health England show that 83 per cent of those eligible for screening in the last year took up the offer in the Wiltshire and Dorset region, with eight referrals made to receive potentially life-saving surgery.

About one in 70 men aged 65 in England has an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and since April 2013 the screening programme has been rolled out through the country.

But only 6,704 of the 8,076 men eligible for screening took up the offer for screening at the region’s centre in Salisbury in the last year.

“I just want to say that if you get the opportunity to have a screening, please, please, please, please do it,” said 80-year-old John, a Stratton St Margaret parish councillor.

“It could save you a whole lot of grief later, not just for yourself but for your family too. A year on and I am still recovering.

“If they discover an aneurysm it takes just a small, routine operation to sort it out. But if it bursts like mine did, it can be very dangerous.”

An abdominal aortic aneur-ysm is a dangerous swelling of the aorta – the main blood vessel that runs from the heart, through the abdomen to the rest of the body.

Left untreated it can rupture. Eight out of 10 ruptures are fatal.

John was taken ill on the morning of September 12, 2013.

He was rushed to the GWH and then on to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, in Gloucester, where doctors were better equipped to treat him.

“I can’t remember much at all about what happened,” he said. “All I remember is waking up in the ambulance on the way back from Gloucester 10 days after and asking where I was.

“The doctors said it was touch and go at one point. I just wish I had been screened sooner.”

All men aged 65 can take a screening test, and those over that age can self-refer for a screening test through their GP.

Dr Anne Mackie, director of programmes for the UK National Screening Committee and NHS Screening Programmes, said: “It is fantastic that in the first full year of the screening programme more than 270,000 men were screened across the country. More than 3,700 of them were found to have aneurysms.”

Michael Wyatt, of Vascular Society, said: “We are delighted to see so many men in England have benefited by having repairs through the screening programme.” Visit www.vascularsociety.org.uk.