Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings in the National Prostate Cancer Audit's State of the Nation Report, published in January, particularly regarding the disparities in health outcomes for black men diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The Department has not made a specific assessment of the findings in the National Prostate Cancer Audit's State of the Nation Report. However, the Government understands 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, we have invested £16 million in the TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping to find a way of catching prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will ensure that one in ten participants are black men.
Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for all tumour types, including prostate cancer. We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be. We will provide updates on this in due course.