Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to promote early detection of treatable diseases amongst (a) the public and (b) healthcare workers.

Each year, over 15 million people are invited for screening, with over 10 million taking up the invitation. In total, this saves approximately 10,000 lives every year and enables many others to make better informed decisions around their health.

The Government delivers 11 screening programmes to detect 33 treatable conditions. The antenatal screening programme also provides information for couples about their baby.

On 14 October 2025, NHS England announced that newborn screening for the rare, life-threatening metabolic disorder hereditary tyrosinaemia type 1 is now being offered to all babies in England.

In early 2026, screening providers will also be able to offer human papillomavirus self-sampling kits to under-screened individuals in the National Health Service cervical screening programme in England. Evidence suggests that self-sampling will increase the numbers engaging with the screening programme.

In addition to this, the Government continues to deliver the NHS Health Check, a core component of England’s cardiovascular disease prevention programme, which aims to detect those at risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and kidney disease for people aged between 40 to 74 years old. In 2024/25, the NHS Health Check engaged over 1.4 million people and prevented an estimated 500 heart attacks and strokes. To improve access to the programme we are piloting an online NHS Health Check so that people can undertake a check at a time and place convenient to them.

Employers across the NHS have their own arrangements in place for supporting their staff, including occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and board level scrutiny through health and wellbeing guardians.

We will also roll out Staff Treatment hubs to ensure that staff have access to high quality support for mental health and back conditions.

At a national level, NHS England has made additional support available. This includes a focus on healthy working environments, tools and resources to support line managers to hold meaningful conversations with staff to discuss their wellbeing, and emotional and psychological health and wellbeing support.