Policy Challenges 2024

Every year, 1 in 8 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK, while more than 12,000 men die of the disease. To save and help these men live healthy and fulfilling lives, we need to stop so many men from being diagnosed too late. To do this, we need to continue to raise awareness of risk and ensure that men can make informed choices around the PSA blood test. 

Find out more about challenges in earlier diagnosis, risk awareness and PSA blood tests.

We know that the life-time risk of being diagnosed with and dying from prostate cancer have been shown to be disproportionate between Black and white men. 1 in 4 Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 12 Black men will die with it. In comparison, 1 in 8 white men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 12 white men will die with prostate cancer.  

To find out more about these health inequalities challenges and what we are doing about them, read our policy challenges document.

There are well known workforce issues within the NHS across primary and secondary care. An existing shortfall in staff is negatively impacting patient outcomes due to increased waiting times along the prostate cancer pathway. With prostate cancer to become the most common cancer in the UK by 2030, this shortfall is set to widen as the need grows. 

We need to improve the workforce in primary and secondary care to support men who have been diagnosed, and those who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the future. Read more about workforce.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to provide the medical community with much needed additional support that could help mitigate against current workforce challenges by reducing reporting times, improving analysis, and diagnostic accuracy. Research on AI within the prostate cancer space is rapidly evolving and has the potential to facilitate aspects of the current standard diagnostic pathway.  

You can read more about the challenges around AI and the work we are doing in this field here.

For prostate cancer, knowing your BRCA (BReast CAncer gene) status is ever more pertinent now that olaparib has become available. Olaparib is the first precision medicine available for metastatic patients that specifically targets BRCA gene variants. 

However, since olaparib monotherapy was made available in Scotland in September 2021 followed by England, Wales and Northern Ireland in May 2023, we still do not have an official national policy and pathway on BRCA variant testing for diagnosed men. 

If you want to read more about the challenges around access to treatments and what we are doing about them, download our policy challenges document.

Active surveillance is a way of managing localised prostate cancer in men with low and intermediate risk. Men assigned to active surveillance can avoid radical treatments (surgery and radiotherapy) and the associated side-effects. Active surveillance comes with its own side-effects, namely anxiety and stress related to concerns that the cancer could spread whilst being monitored. 

Although thousands of men are eligible and are on active surveillance, there are no national standard protocols, quality assurance, audit or KPIs relating to active surveillance. 

Interested in understanding the challenges around active surveillance and how we plan to address them? Download our policy challenges document now. 

At Prostate Cancer UK we want to ensure that men and their loved ones are receiving the best possible support. There are several challenges around support for men in the following areas, psychological wellbeing, Sexual Wellbeing palliative and end of life care and Incontinence care.

We recognise the importance of these areas and the impact it has on men's lives and so we want the best support possible to be available for all men. To read more, download our policy challenges document.