On Tuesday 14th October Peter joined fellow Parliamentarians, clinicians, prostate cancer patients, industry representatives, celebrities and media at a reception hosted by the charity Prostate Cancer Research at the House of Commons. The event marked the launch of the charity’s new report showing that the introduction of a targeted national prostate cancer screening programme would be practical, affordable, and save thousands of lives.
The report, ‘Prostate Cancer Screening: The Impact on the NHS’, challenges the argument that the NHS cannot cope with the demand of a national screening programme, demonstrating that the benefits of introducing targeted screening for those at highest risk outweigh the financial and logistical costs.
The report's key findings include:
· Value for life saved: An annual investment of £25 million to deliver targeted screening would translate to an estimated 1,254 years of life saved for the target groups each year. This equates to approximately £20,000 for every extra year of life saved, representing strong evidence in favour of targeted screening.
· Comparable and reasonable cost: The estimated cost per eligible individual is just £18, aligning with, or below, existing national cancer screening programmes like breast and bowel cancer. Moreover, the introduction of reflex testing in the future could further reduce annual costs by ~33% to ~£17m, while improving accuracy and reducing unnecessary investigations.
· Manageable NHS impact: The targeted screening programme would generate an approximately 23% increase in current diagnostic activity (PSA blood tests, MRI scans, and biopsies). This demand would be manageable with a relatively small percentage increase in NHS workforce numbers, ranging from 0.01% (nurses) up to 0.4% (pathologists).
· Case finding is now possible: Previously there had been concerns that it would be impossible to find men in these high-risk groups. The report shows that identifying Black men within a specific age range is relatively straightforward, as ethnicity and age are now routinely captured in most primary care records. Identifying individuals with a family history is also possible, with recent pilots showing that supplementing GP records with self-reported data can significantly improve case identification.
Prostate Cancer Research is calling on the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) to fully consider this significant new evidence as they conduct their review of prostate cancer screening, ahead of a decision expected before the end of the year.
