Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to use (a) screening and (b) enhanced testing to increase early diagnosis rates for prostate cancer.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) does not currently recommend screening for prostate cancer as the current test, the Prostate Specific Antigen test, does not meet the required accuracy for use in a national screening programme. Current methods offer insufficient benefit in relation to harms caused by overdiagnosis, which may lead to invasive investigative procedures and unnecessary treatment, to warrant roll out as an organised screening programme. The UK NSC is due to review prostate cancer again in 2024 and will consider new evidence published between the two reviews.

In November 2023 we announced we will be funding a £42 million screening trial with Prostate Cancer UK to find ways of detecting country’s most common male cancer earlier. The first-of-its-kind trial, called TRANSFORM, will use innovative screening methods like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning to detect prostate cancer, and it will see hundreds of thousands of men across the country participating.

Steps have been taken to use enhanced testing to increase early diagnosis rates for prostate cancer; NHS England have streamlined cancer pathways, including implementing a best timed prostate cancer diagnostic pathway so that those suspected of prostate cancer receive a multi-parametric MRI scan first, which ensures only those men most at-risk undergo an invasive biopsy.  Furthermore, to boost early diagnosis NHS England is supporting three pilots, including the Man Van as part of the COVID-19 catch up cancer initiative. The Man Van was launched in March 2022 to provide free health checks for men and boost early diagnosis of prostate cancer.

In addition, backed by £2.3 billion capital funding, the department is expanding diagnostic capacity across the National Health Service by rolling out more Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs), delivering vital tests, scans and checks. With 150 CDCs open already and up to 160 set to open by March 2025, these offer millions of patients the chance to access quicker, more convenient checks outside of hospitals, with capacity prioritised for cancer. This is contributing to the elective recovery delivery plan ambition for 75% of patients urgently referred by their general practice for suspected cancer to receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.