Electrocardiogram Screening

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really valid point, and it is exactly that sort of issue that the UK National Screening Committee needs to take into consideration when deciding a way forward. To give more information on its process, it is going to undertake a mapping exercise, and, when this is completed, the evidence map will be sent out widely for consultation, so there will be opportunities for people to take part in that.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, at the very effective seminar that was arranged, it was clear that the screening of high-performance athletes is the area where benefit has been found. I wonder whether the Minister agrees, following on from the very perceptive comment from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, that the complexities interplaying behind sudden cardiac death in the young must be better understood. AI may come forward with a way of screening without this enormous number of false positives, because the danger of false positives is that young people avoid sport and exercise and then develop worse health outcomes in the long term, rather than actually finding ways of coping better for those who do need an intervention to sort out their cardiac abnormality.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the noble Baroness on that point.