Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press notice entitled Biggest prostate cancer screening trial in decades to start in UK published on 19 November 2023, what assessment her Department has made of the additional workforce capacity that will be required to deliver the trial.

The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR invests in the research delivery workforce, the facilities and capacity to support clinical trials. The NIHR Clinical Research Facilities and Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres support the delivery of early phase trials and the NIHR Clinical Research Network and Patient Recruitment Centres support delivery and participation in later phase clinical trials. The prostate cancer trial announced on 19 November will be run by Prostate Cancer UK with the Government contributing alongside others.

To maximise research participation, the NIHR provides the online platform ‘Be Part of Research’, which allows users to search for and register their interest in participating in the clinical trials of most interest and relevance to them. NIHR has also supported initiatives to increase diagnosis rates and participation in prostate cancer research by men from black and minority ethnic groups.

The recently announced TRANSFORM trial aims to save thousands of men each year by finding the best way to screen for prostate cancer. The trial will be United Kingdom-wide, although final decisions on specific locations are yet to be taken. Men will be invited to participate via their general practices. This study will also aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis today by ensuring that one in 10 of the trial participants will be black men, who are three times overrepresented compared to the population of men aged 45 to 75 as based on 2021 census data.

The UK National Screening Committee will be reviewing the evidence that is published by this study. This will help to inform any future recommendation on creating a national screening programme for prostate cancer.