Shropshire MP joins former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in push for targeted prostate cancer screening
A Shropshire MP joined forces with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to warn the Government that a "frozen" prostate cancer screening system is putting lives at risk.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan was among a cross-party group urging ministers to act amid concerns that the UK’s prostate cancer screening system is costing lives while the Government waits for further trial data.
Their intervention came before the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) announced that screening all men for prostate cancer was not currently recommended due to the potential harms of overdiagnosis.
A letter signed by 125 MPs and coordinated by Prostate Cancer Research was hand-delivered to Health Secretary Mr Streeting on Monday, November 24 by Ms Morgan, Mr Sunak and Labour MP Calvin Bailey.
The MPs warned that as decision makers wait for "perfect" data, men continue to die unnecessarily because of factors such as ethnicity and postcode. The letter criticises the current testing system as inefficient and unfair, with men in deprived areas significantly more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage and die from the disease.
Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire and the party’s Health and Social Care spokesperson, said: "We already have successful screening programmes for breast and bowel cancer, yet catching the most common cancer in men is left to chance. This is a glaring gap in our prevention-first health strategy.
"If we are serious about shifting the NHS from a sickness service to a prevention service, we simply cannot afford to ignore the evidence on prostate cancer any longer. We now have the tools to catch this devastating disease early, and it is time we used them."
The letter calls on the Government to be ready to introduce targeted screening for those at highest risk, including Black men, men with a family history of prostate, breast or ovarian cancer, and carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic variants.
Ms Morgan stated that screening has been shown to reduce prostate cancer mortality by 13 per cent. She added that advances in MRI technology have also significantly improved safety, cutting the risk of harms associated with screening - such as unnecessary biopsies - by 79 per cent.
Rishi Sunak MP, Prostate Cancer Research ambassador, added: "We are writing united by a belief that no man should die because of his postcode, ethnicity, or GP access. The evidence is now clear: screening saves lives, and technology has engineered out the harms that once justified inaction.
"We cannot allow the system to remain frozen, waiting for trials that could take another decade while men are left behind. Perfection must not be the enemy of progress. I urge the Health Secretary to deliver a legacy-defining advance for men’s health."
