Sudden Cardiac Death: Screening for Young People

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My noble friend raises the crucial point about the NSC. I emphasise again that it has a well-earned international reputation for rigour and for making robust, evidence-based recommendations that stand up to scrutiny. My noble friend is right that we have to understand that introducing population-level screening for some aspects can cause harm, and we have to be mindful of that, let the experts do their work and come up with the best way forward for the majority of people.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, many sudden cardiac arrests in the young happen when they are engaged in sport or physical activity. A study by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that since the introduction of screening, Italy has seen a fall in the incidence of sudden cardiac death in sport by 89% to a level that is now below the general population. Today, the rate in Italy is just one in 1.5 million, compared with one in 100,000 in the rest of the world. What conversations have the Government had with their Italian counterparts to understand what is different about the Italian population and why they have decided to screen young people active in sport?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

Comparisons of screening programmes with other health systems can be misleading. For example, the programme in Italy operates only in the area around Venice; it is not a national screening programme. The published data is unclear and we have requested further information. Of course, if any programme in the world is really cutting through, we want to know about it. We would love to know more, and we urge the Italians to respond to our request for more information.