Prostate Cancer Screening

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dr Murrison. I start by paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak). He is doing a fantastic job of using the convening power that comes with his former office to shed light on this subject. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) did a great job of outlining the need for a more evidence-based focus on increasing the base for screening. I will not touch on that, but I do want to talk about the inequalities associated with screening.

The national prostate cancer audit in 2025 showed that inequalities in prostate cancer treatment are deepening. Men in deprived areas are more likely to present with advanced diseases and are more likely to die. That should shame us. There is a national dynamic to this. At a recent meeting with Prostate Cancer Research, I was told about the discrepancies in late diagnosis across the UK. In Scotland, 31% of prostate cancers are diagnosed too late for curative treatment. That is higher than in any other part of the UK. In London, for example, the figure is 15%. Those differences are unacceptable and should shame us.

The current system relies too often on chance and on a patient being persistent. GP guidelines do not encourage practitioners to discuss risks with patients if they are asymptomatic. That means that too many men request a test only because of a chance conversation with friends or family—or, hopefully, they might get the opportunity to access one in Parliament. Awareness of the risks is also unequal, with the most health-literate and affluent men more likely to request a test. If men from all walks of life are not aware of the risks or their right to request a test, without a national screening programme inequality is baked into the system.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

In my constituency of Leicester South, nearly 10% of residents are from the black and Afro-Caribbean community, which is more than double the national average. Does the hon. Member agree that leaving those men in a situation where they have to know that they have to ask for a PSA test builds inequality into our system?

[Dr Arthur]

I agree and we have to be honest that this is not an issue unique to prostate cancer. With so many cancers, members of the black and ethnic minority community are much more likely to be diagnosed in accident and emergency, and that never leads to a good outcome.

Screening will not end deaths from prostate cancer completely, but it is the right way forward to minimise deaths from prostate cancer, and I think that that is something we are all agreed on today.