A men’s health charity has accused the Government of years of delay after the National Screening Committee decided in May against a nationwide prostate cancer screening programme.
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in UK men, with around 63,000 cases and 13,000 deaths a year. Almost half of cases present with advanced, incurable disease. The UK ranks 23rd out of 31 European countries on prostate cancer mortality.
Prof Chris Booth, retired urologist and founder of men’s health charity Chaps, said “more men will die unnecessarily from the UK’s most common cancer” as a result of the decision, and urged incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a former
Health Secretary, to put screening reform at the top of his agenda.
The National Screening Committee has instead recommended screening only for men carrying BRCA gene variants, a group estimated at three in every 1,000 men. Everyone else remains outside any organised programme.
“This decision ignores the overwhelming majority of men at risk,” Prof Booth said. “With a national screening programme, as we have for other common cancers, thousands of lives could be saved through earlier diagnosis.”
The Government has continued to back the £60 million TRANSFORM trial, funded by £26 million from charities including Prostate Cancer UK and £34 million from the Government via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) – of which £16 million was the NIHR’s initial commitment, later topped up with a further £18 million to widen the trial’s reach to Black men.
Prof Booth argued the trial format offers “no guarantees” of success or new answers, and accused successive governments of a “dithering approach” that risks delaying screening that could already be justified by existing international evidence.
“The European Union formally endorsed prostate cancer screening in 2022, and several European countries are now implementing national screening programmes based on modern, risk-stratified approaches,” he said. “Yet despite mounting international evidence, the Government has ignored the overwhelming majority of men at risk in favour of one trial. Every year of delay means more men are diagnosed too late for curative treatment.”
Prostate cancer remains the only major cancer in the UK without a national screening programme.