Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned timetable is for the UK National Screening Committee review of its advice on screening for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The UK National Screening Committee last reviewed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 2018, and recommended against a national screening programme for three reasons:

• the lack of an accurate test to detect the condition at an early stage;
• it is not known if medicines for COPD are effective in people with mild symptoms; and
• the best treatment for early COPD is to stop smoking, but people with few or no symptoms may not be willing to do this.

The Secretariat hopes to be able to commission a further evidence update within the next three years.