Prostate Cancer: Screening
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will introduce a national screening programme for prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), that advises ministers in all four nations of the United Kingdom, has carried out an evidence review to look at screening for prostate cancer. It is only where the UK NSC is confident that screening provides more good than harm that a screening programme is recommended.
On 28 November 2025, the UK NSC opened a 12- week public consultation on a draft recommendation to:
- offer a targeted national prostate cancer screening programme to men with confirmed BRCA1/2 gene variants every two years from 45 years old to age 61 years old;
- not recommend population screening;
- not recommend targeted screening of black men;
- not recommend targeted screening of men with family history; and
- collaborate with the Transform trial team to answer outstanding questions on screening effectiveness for black men and men with a family history as soon as the trial data becomes available, and to await the results of the study to develop and trial a more accurate test than the prostate specific antigen test alone, to improve the balance of benefit and harm of screening.
After the consultation closes, in early 2026, the UK NSC will make a final recommendation on screening for prostate cancer. Ministers will consider whether to accept the recommendation at this time.
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