I READ with interest your article on the plans for a charitable trust to offer prostate cancer blood tests in Hereford on August 22.

This has been organised without any consultation with the local heath team and I would be grateful if you would make this clear to your readers.

There are very good reasons why there is not a national prostate cancer screening service, but I would first reassure Herefordshire men that they can already have a PSA blood test free from their GP after first talking through the issues for and against screening. I strongly advise GP colleagues not to take blood during a patient’s first consultation as men need time to consider the consequences of a positive result.

Prostate cancer is undoubtedly a devastating disease for many men but equally as many as 20 per cent of men in later life will have a small focus of the disease which will never cause them harm.

To offer a screening service one needs to be sure you can identify serious but curable disease without overdiagnosing small tumours. A recently published study carried out in the whole of Europe has shown that when screening for prostate cancer 48 men need to be treated radically to save one life.

Also blood testing alone is not an adequate screen as more than 10 per cent of prostate cancers are diagnosed by examination when the PSA is within the normal range. A blood test may therefore give false reassurance.

I would strongly advise men to discuss these issues with their GP before holding out their arm to “a qualified phlebotomist”.