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 tackle disparities in prostate cancer outcomes for Black men.

The Government understands that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for all people with prostate cancer, including for black men.

To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men. This is vital as previous trials have not included enough black men to adequately demonstrate the harms and benefits of screening for this group specifically, despite their significantly higher risk.

In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new National Cancer Plan. The plan will seek to improve outcomes and address disparities, including for prostate cancer. A call for evidence, seeking contributions from individuals and organisations, including ideas on how to improve outcomes for prostate cancer, is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/shaping-the-national-cancer-plan/shaping-the-national-cancer-plan