Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for consideration of the final outcome of the UK National Screening Committee's evaluation of prostate cancer screening.

We have accepted the recommendation of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) to introduce England's first targeted prostate cancer screening programme. The programme, rolling out in 2027, will screen men between 45 and 61 years old who have a BRCA2 gene variant and a family history of prostate, breast, pancreatic or ovarian cancer.

Alongside introducing targeted screening, the Government has announced a major package of investment of over £20 million to expand research and improve treatment. This includes committing to: provide additional funding to the jointly-funded NIHR and Prostate Cancer UK TRANSFORM screening trial to ensure all eligible Black men are invited to take part in the second stage, filling essential gaps in the evidence relating to Black men who are twice as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as white men; work with clinical experts to improve the guidance for general practitioners on men with a family history of cancer seeking a prostate specific antigen test if they have no symptoms of prostate cancer; invest further capital funds in focal therapies, a less invasive treatment for prostate cancer that can reduce harms from treatment, to further develop the evidence for an emerging and innovative treatment, and support the expansion in the TRANSFORM trial; and maintain the UK NSC-commissioned SCHARR model, ensuring that it can be updated as new evidence becomes available.