Sudden Cardiac Death: Screening for Young People

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. The need for evidence is paramount in this area. I cannot speak on behalf of the Minister, but I will make sure that she is aware of the noble Lord’s request and will respond.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, although great strides are being made in medicine, as I understand it, to study individuals’ genetics to predict a propensity to get diseases later in life, this raises a serious question about how the insurance market is going to respond to that. I would be very dubious about going in for one of these screening tests because inevitably health insurance would be refused for anything that showed up. It is a great advance in medicine to be able to predict what you might or might not get, but there is a serious issue with insurance companies. Is that on the Government’s agenda?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I am aware that this informs some people’s decisions not to go forward for the test. That is a real consideration. All aspects of genomics will be taken into account by the Government. The noble Lord raises an important point. We cannot force people to go for testing if they chose not to for whatever reason.