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 (a) establishing an NHS information campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer referral routes for GPs and (b) issuing specific guidance to GPs on informing patients about the (i) NICE and (ii) PCRMP referral routes.

The Government takes the management of the risk of prostate cancer seriously. Too many men are waiting too long for diagnosis and treatment, and this must change. We have asked the UK National Screening Committee to look at the evidence for screening for prostate cancer and we will await their findings before making an evidence-based decision.

A public awareness campaign at this stage would not be appropriate. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance relates to symptomatic patients, while the Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme is guidance for general practitioners (GPs) on how to counsel non-symptomatic men about the risks associated with using the current best test for prostate cancer, because of its lack of accuracy. Before we direct asymptomatic individuals to GPs, we need a better test, and that is why the Government has invested £16 million into the TRANSFORM trial, which is looking for more effective ways of accurately detecting prostate cancer.