Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to make it his policy to ensure that integrated care boards recommend high-intensity focused ultrasound to people with localised prostate cancer outside London.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has developed interventional procedures guidance on high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment for prostate cancer and focal therapy using HIFU for localised prostate cancer. This type of guidance considers if interventional procedures are safe and work well enough for wider use in the National Health Service, and both pieces of guidance acknowledge that there is a lack of evidence on quality-of-life benefits and long-term survival.

The NICE’s guidelines recommend that HIFU should not be offered to people with localised or locally advanced prostate cancer, other than in the context of controlled clinical trials comparing their use with established interventions.