Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in preparing the forthcoming Green Paper on the future funding of adult social care, whether emphasis will be placed on personalised preventative medicine and Screening Saves Lives; and what plans they have to reduce the screening age from 60 to 50 years.

The Green Paper on care and support will primarily focus on social care for older adults.

In terms of personalised preventative medicine, NHS England introduced the general practitioner contract in 2017/18. This aims to support people to live well for longer, through identifying patients who may be living with frailty and ensuring that they have access to the key evidence-based interventions including a falls assessment and medications review.

The Government is committed to providing well-managed screening programmes that are introduced following a robust process using peer reviewed evidence. The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) advises ministers and the National Health Service in all four countries about all aspects of screening policy and supports implementation. The national cancer screening programmes in England include adult cancer screening programmes for cervical, breast and bowel cancer with varying age parameters, and any changes made to existing screening programmes will follow the UK NSC’s published evidence review process.