Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of implementing a national screening programme for prostate cancer.

Screening for prostate cancer is currently not recommended in the United Kingdom. This is because of the inaccuracy of the current best test, PSA.

The Government recently announced its intention to undertake a ground-breaking prostate cancer screening trial in the UK, using a combination of PSA testing and magnetic resonance imaging, to look for prostate cancer in men that otherwise do not have any symptoms.

Supported by £16 million of funding from the Government, Prostate Cancer UK's £42 million trial could help us find a way of catching prostate cancer in men as early as possible before the cancer spreads and could save thousands of lives. The UK National Screening Committee will review the findings when the research is completed.