Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a screening programme for prostate cancer for people over 50.

The United Kingdom National Screening Committee UK NSC) reviewed the evidence during the consultation of prostate cancer screening in men over the age of 50 years old in 2020 and recommended that a population screening programme should not be introduced.

The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is not accurate enough to detect the aggressive prostate cancers that need treatment. It can identify men as having prostate cancer when in fact they do not and miss some aggressive cancers. Many men may then undergo unnecessary tests and treatments and risk long term health problems. It is still not clear whether other tests such as a magnetic resonance imaging scan, with or without the PSA, are accurate enough.