Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve testing procedures for prostate cancer.

The Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test measures the level of PSA in a man’s blood, and is currently the most common method of identifying an increased risk of localised prostate cancer. There have been efforts in recent years to develop risk prediction tools that use different blood tests (biomarkers) and other characteristics (e.g. size of the prostate, age etc) in addition to PSA to assess more accurately whether a man has clinically significant prostate cancer.

The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) can be alerted to the publication of any new peer-reviewed evidence which suggests a change in the current recommendation, such as a new test, via the UK NSC’s early update process. Submissions are accepted throughout the year.

More information on how an early update can be submitted to the UK NSC for consideration is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-evidence-review-process/uk-nsc-evidence-review-process