Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will add 22q11.2 Syndromes to the standard blood screen test for new-borns.

There are no plans to add 22q11.2 syndromes to the new-born blood spot screening programme. Proposals to expand screening for new-born blood spot screening must be submitted to the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) for assessment against its criteria to ensure screening is introduced where the benefit clearly outweighs the harm.

The UK NSC runs an annual call for topics in September where members of the pubic and stakeholders can submit new topics to be considered. The UK NSC carried out a review for 22q11.2 Syndrome in 2018 following an annual call submission and recommended that at the time the evidence was insufficient to recommend a screening programme.