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Dept of Health

Answer

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what his Department's publicity budget for prostate cancer awareness is in the current year; what his Department's expenditure on prostate cancer awareness was in each of the last six years; and if he will make a statement; [207903] Sir Nicholas Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps his Department is taking to increase public awareness of (a) detection, (b) diagnosis and (c) treatment of prostate cancer; [208408] (2) what steps his Department is taking to increase clinical knowledge of prostate cancer amongst (a) general practitioners and (b) other health professionals; [208409] (3) what progress has been made in (a) detection and (b) treatment of prostate cancer since 1997; [208411] Miss Melanie Johnson: The national health service prostate cancer programme was launched in September 2000 and set out the Government's commitment to improve early detection of prostate cancer, to improve treatment and care for prostate cancer patients and to enhance research into prostate cancer. Since the launch, significant progress has been made. The prostate cancer risk management programme (PCRMP) has been set up to ensure that all men considering a test for prostate cancer are given information on the benefits, limitations and risks associated with having a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. We have issued clinical best practice so that PSA testing is performed to an explicit quality standard and that there is a systematic and standardised follow-up for those men with a high PSA level. Raising public awareness of prostate cancer is one of the key challenges for the future. We want men to know what their prostate is, what is does and what can go wrong with it. However, we have to raise public awareness in a responsible way so as not to cause undue anxiety and worry. Thanks to the work of the prostate cancer advisory group we now have, for the first time, a definitive set of key messages for the general public, which include prostate cancer and in such a way as not to cause unnecessary anxiety. The key messages have been agreed by 20 organisations, including charities, patient groups and professional bodies, as well as the Department and can be fed into existing and future communications vehicles or as stand alone messages. We have provided funding for the following organisations to increase public awareness of prostate cancer: In 2003-04 we provided £30,000 to the Men's Health Forum to help fund its publication, the Men and Cancer manual. We have provided £135,000 to the Prostate Cancer Charity to increase available information about prostate cancer. We are providing £105,000 to the Prostate Cancer Charity to improve awareness of the risks and symptoms of prostate cancer in African and Afro-Caribbean men in Britain. We are working with the voluntary sector to develop a national prostate cancer website and have provided £100,000 of funding. It is expected that the website will be launched this summer. We are also working to both increase and improve clinical knowledge of prostate cancer. In April 2000, we published referral guidelines for suspected cancer to help general practitioners identify those patients who are most likely to have cancer and who therefore require urgent assessment by a specialist. The guidelines included a section on prostate cancer. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is currently reviewing this guidance and an update is due to be published in 2005. The PCRMP has produced a booklet, called, The PSA test and prostate cancer: Information for primary care. This booklet provides GPs with an easy reference source on prostate cancer, from risk factors to treatment. The booklet was produced after consultation with GPs, primary care cancer leads and an expert advisory group. In September 2002, NICE published guidance on urological cancers, including prostate cancer. This guidance covers all aspects of cancer care for urological cancer patients and is aimed at helping all of those involved in planning, commissioning, organising and providing cancer services to ensure high quality services. As well as this guidance NICE is developing guidelines for the clinical management of prostate cancer and an overview of brachytherapy as an interventional procedure for prostate cancer. NICE is also appraising two prostate cancer drugs, Docetaxel and Atrasentan. The cancer services collaborative has been working with urology teams across the country to improve access to care and to streamline the delivery of care. We have also increased twenty-fold research funding for prostate cancer since 1999-2000; from £200,000 to £4.2million for 2003-04. This level of funding will be maintained, subject to the quality of research proposals.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

430 c188-90W;430 c189-90W; 208408;208409;208411

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Health services Expenditure Publicity Screening Research Prostate cancer

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk