When it comes to cancer, we do know that one of the most important elements to improve the chances of survival is ensuring an early diagnosis. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but with prostate cancer specifically, there is a testing method that does simplify and therefore accelerates the process of providing a diagnosis, and that is the mpMRI scan. You can’t have a diagnosis of prostate cancer through a non-invasive test. The PSA test is available, but that only recognises whether you need further tests. The further tests include biopsies and they include a surgical method, which is undesirable for patients and should be avoided if possible. Other tests are not entirely reliable either. They can miss cancers—give the impression that patients are clear. That, of course, can lead to a patient ignoring symptoms and being untreated as a result. They can also suggest that the cancer is in the body when there is no cancer there, leading to treatment that can lead to lifelong complications.

The mpMRI scan does offer a much more promising pathway for accurate diagnosis. Very simply, it gives a clearer picture of what’s happening in the prostate. And the evidence that’s emerging—and I thank Tenovus specifically for one brief that I have—shows that mpMRI scans can be much more sensitive than other biopsies in recognising significant clinical cancers. So, it is much less likely to produce negative, fake results. However, it doesn’t remove the possibility of a false positive, so when the test does recognise the cancer, the patient does have to go through a biopsy. So, no, it’s not perfect, but NICE has supported the use of mpMRI as a significant improvement on the old system and has published guidance to that end.

The question, therefore, that we have before us is not about a petition calling for something where the evidence is not there yet to support it—we’re asking: why is there not regular or consistent access to tests that have been proven to be valuable under the appropriate circumstances?