Electrocardiogram Screening

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to tell the noble Lord that Sport England and others are already working with charities such as Cardiac Risk in the Young to make sure that screening takes place at a local level. There are additional things that can be done. Buddle, which is Sports England’s site for clubs and community organisations, is looking to further increase the profile of organisations, such as CRY, which organise screening locally in the next refresh of the safety, welfare and well-being section of its website, which should take place imminently.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, in one study of over 600 patients, the false positive results of screening of this kind were as high as about 70%, and the negative results were about 7%—there probably would have been more had there been longer follow-up. The risk, of course, is that vast numbers of false positives cause massive anxiety, and considerable expense to the health service, with further testing that is completely unnecessary. This happened in my own case over 20 years ago—finally, my heart decided that I was still alive. This is a real issue in this era of preventive medicine: we have to choose the right test, and I doubt the electrocardiogram is accurate enough.

[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.