Sudden Cardiac Death: Screening for Young People

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I am not convinced that the evidence is as categoric as the noble Lord asserts, but I am delighted to tell the House that the UK National Screening Committee will open a public consultation on sudden cardiac death screening in the spring. It is crucial that we let it do its work and bring all the evidence forward to make sure that we come forward with the right approach to a desperate situation.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the UK National Screening Committee is an excellent body doing a fine job of work? It is interesting that this is the third Question on screening we have had in the past two months of parliamentary work. What we see is that screening that is not focused is not only not valuable but risky because it causes a great deal of harm to perfectly healthy people. Will she point out that focused screening is what we need and that that requires considerable scientific endeavour? I think we are endeavouring to do that at the moment.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My noble friend raises the crucial point about the NSC. I emphasise again that it has a well-earned international reputation for rigour and for making robust, evidence-based recommendations that stand up to scrutiny. My noble friend is right that we have to understand that introducing population-level screening for some aspects can cause harm, and we have to be mindful of that, let the experts do their work and come up with the best way forward for the majority of people.