Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication of the National Cancer Plan for England on 4 February, what steps they will take to make at-home prostate-specific antigen testing available to all men in high-risk groups.

The National Cancer Plan is a key part of our work to build a National Health Service fit for the future, and it sets out how we will make England a world leader in cancer outcomes. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and the Government is taking this issue seriously.

However, there are currently no clinically validated and reliable at-home prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests that are suitable for use in the NHS by asymptomatic men in any risk category.

In addition, the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which advises ministers on all screening matters, recently closed a 12-week public consultation on a draft recommendation to offer targeted screening for prostate cancer in men with variants of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, every two years from the age of 45 to 61 years old, but advising against screening for other high risk groups due to either an absence of evidence, or evidence that shows that doing so would do more harm than good.

We expect the UK NSC to make a final recommendation soon. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will then consider the advice, make a decision, and determine the next steps. This includes access to PSA testing.