My personal opinion is that national screening would be un-manageable due to cost and the numbers involved.
Any NHS initiative seems to end up top heavy with bods (planning paper consultants - not the medical ones) who earn the big money for stating the obvious and make the whole thing too expensive to put into action.
I heartily second the opinion that GPs need better training or awareness of the need for testing for those men who have family history or who present at the surgery with symptoms that could be PC related.
For a GP to state that somebody it too young for a particular cancer is plain wrong. Assumptions shouldn't be made like that.
My daughter in law lost a breast at 27, but she was too young for breast cancer
My daughter lost her bowel at 36 but it couldn't be bowel cancer because it's an old persons disease
A GP is a typical jack of all trades and master of none, why he should he be, it was after all his choice not to specialise.
There is a difference though in non specialising and a GP so tunnel visioned that he can confidently say to somebody it's a waste of time and NHS resources to test.
I'm not suggesting that PSA tests should be offered at a set age but that advice should be given to those arriving at a surgery with symptoms that COULD be related to a cancer or offered to a man who wants one, if only to put that man's mind at rest.
John has a slight arrythmia. It's never bothered him, he didn't even know he had one until he had a hip replacement and they mentioned it, but his GP wants to put him on warfarin which he has been resisting for years because he's quite happy with his baby asprin.
The GP told him that at 75 he would HAVE to go on it because of his age, irrespective of what blood pressure tests or his general health were showing. Where's the sense in that.
The NHS was born the same year as me and has grown old at the same time.
Getting older can't improve me but if only somebody would take control and say enough is enough with all the wasting of OUR money, the the good old NHS could have a new lease of life.