By Andrew Stuttaford
Friday, May 29, 2026
“Our” NHS, the envy of the world, etc., may be on the
edge of taking a step that, if approved, will act as a deadly reminder of how
brutal health care rationing can be within Britain’s National Health Service.
The UK performs
worse than many European countries on prostate cancer survival, ranking 17th of
28 countries in one league table.
Almost every country in Europe is now planning or piloting
some form of prostate cancer screening.
But on Thursday,
the UK National Screening Committee (NSC) – which advises ministers – ruled
that the vast majority of men should be denied screening.
Only men with a
cancer-causing form of the BRCA2 gene and a family history of breast, ovarian,
pancreatic or prostate cancer should be eligible, the guidance states.
How many would qualify? It’s hard to say, apparently. A
“few thousand” is the estimate given by the committee’s chairman.
If that recommendation is followed, the consequences will
be lethal. Early-stage prostate cancer can be symptomless or associated with
other problems that are not necessarily evidence of cancer. Either way, that
increases the case for routine screening after a certain age (which will vary). If someone turns out to have prostate
cancer, early detection can pave the way for early intervention, which can often amount to no more than
increased surveillance. Early detection, as I know from my own family’s
experience, can save lives.
Part of what lies behind this move is concern that early
detection will prompt some men, understandably alarmed at a diagnosis that
includes the word “cancer,” to press for more radical treatment than their
situation calls for. But the idea that the way to address this issue is to
deliberately keep people in the dark by discouraging or denying screening is at
best paternalistic nonsense, at worst an attempt to provide a “medical” excuse
for cost containment that may even end up failing at that.
The U.K. has no national prostate-cancer-screening
program, a bizarre state of affairs given how common the disease is. Could it
be that its dismal prostate-cancer survival rankings reflect that, at least in
part?
Yes, that is a rhetorical question.
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