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 (a) increase access to and (b) improve prostate cancer (i) diagnosis and (ii) treatment, in the context of disparities in early detection rates across different socio-economic groups; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of conducting more proactive screenings for high-risk individuals.

The Department has invested £16 million in the TRANSFORM trial which seeks to find ways to diagnose prostate cancer as early as possible. This trial will compare the most promising tests to look for prostate cancer in men that do not have symptoms, and aims to address disparities in early detection rates across different groups.

We are also working with NHS England to support the National Health Service in meeting the Faster Diagnosis Standard for cancer to be diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days from an urgent suspected cancer referral. This includes introducing best practice timed pathways for prostate cancer to streamline diagnostic pathways and speed up diagnoses.

To improve treatment, NHS England has funded 10 clinical audits, including on prostate cancer. Using routine data collected on patients diagnosed with cancer in an NHS setting, the audit will look at what is being done well, where it’s being done well, and what needs to be done better. This will seek to reduce unwarranted variation in treatment and reduce inequalities across different groups.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is already undertaking an evidence review into prostate cancer screening and will report within the UK NCS’s three-year work plan. The evidence review includes modelling the clinical cost effectiveness of several approaches to prostate cancer screening, including targeted and proactive screening aimed at groups of people identified as being at higher than average risk.