Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) increase public awareness and (b) reduce stigma in men about early screening for prostate cancer.

The Department actively supports campaigns to increase public awareness of the symptoms of prostate cancer. NHS England is running the Help Us Help You campaigns to raise awareness of cancer symptoms, including symptoms of prostate cancer, and to encourage people to come forward to see their general practitioner (GP). The Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme provides GPs with information to counsel asymptomatic men aged 50 years old and over about Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer.

NHS England has also partnered with Cancer Alliances, charities, and local representatives to reach people through projects in the heart of their communities. Cancer Alliances have been undertaking action to alert at-risk groups about prostate cancer at a local level, where needed.

There is no current screening programme for prostate cancer in the United Kingdom. This is because of the inaccuracy of the current best test, a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. A PSA-based screening programme could harm men, as some of them would be diagnosed with a cancer that would not have caused them problems during their life. This would lead to additional tests and treatments, which can also have harmful side effects. However, we are backing groundbreaking trials to improve diagnostic processes and save thousands more lives. This includes a £42 million UK-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best way of screening for prostate cancer, to which the Department is providing £16 million.