Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for completion of the TRANSFORM trial into prostate cancer screening.

The TRANSFORM study, funded in partnership with Prostate Cancer UK, will look at new ways of screening for prostate cancer, and will include a national randomised control trial that will provide the definitive data for policymakers to decide on whether screening for prostate cancer should be recommended. The study is broken down into three phases: Phase 1, between 2025 and 2027; Phase 2, between 2028 and 2033; and Phase 3, between 2034 and 2043.

Phase 1 is focusing on making the trial run smoothly, testing a number of different possible screening approaches, and also determining the best way to engage men in the community to take part in the study. Critically, it is also determining the best form of randomisation to carry out. Recruitment for phase one is currently open.

Phase 2 will take forward the most robust randomisation strategy and the most promising screening approach or approaches with tens of thousands of consenting participants, in order to prove that these new screening strategies are beneficial.

Phase 3 will involve monitoring the trial participants over the following 10 years to determine the long-term impact of screening on rates of disease progression and survival.