NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme Made Permanent

The NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme will become a permanent service in the UK, as announced in the Jewish Chronicle. This marks an important step forward for cancer prevention through population-based testing.

The NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme offers genetic testing to people with Jewish ancestry, helping identify those who carry BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations that significantly increase the risk of breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancers.

According to the NHS programme, more than 700 BRCA carriers have already been identified through testing. For many of these individuals, this information provides an opportunity to take action before cancer develops through enhanced screening, risk-reducing medication, or preventative surgery.

At Prevent Breast Cancer, we welcome this commitment to making genetic testing more widely available. Identifying people at increased risk before they develop cancer to then be able to offer them preventative therapies is a powerful example of prevention in action.

Understanding genetic risk factors such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 has long been a focus of Prevent Breast Cancer’s research strategy, helping to improve risk prediction and identify opportunities for earlier intervention.

BRCA mutations are more common among people with Jewish ancestry than in the wider population. Around one in 40 people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and one in 140 people of Sephardi Jewish descent carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation, compared with around one in 250 people in the general population. Yet many carriers would never be identified through traditional testing pathways because they have no obvious family history of cancer.

Population-based testing programmes help address this gap, enabling people to understand their risk earlier and access preventative options that could reduce their chances of developing cancer.

This approach reflects a broader shift towards more personalised healthcare, where prevention strategies are tailored to an individual’s level of risk, rather than relying on symptoms or routine breast screening to detect cancer after it has developed.

The success of the programme has attracted attention across the cancer prevention community. Earlier this year, Professor Ranjit Manchanda, who spearheaded the NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme, spoke at Prevent Breast Cancer’s Research Conference, where he shared insights into the programme’s development and its potential to transform how genetic risk is identified and managed.

While identifying more BRCA carriers is a major achievement, an important question remains: what happens next?

Receiving information about an increased cancer risk can be life-changing. For some people, the path forward may feel clear. For others, decisions about preventative surgery, medication, increased screening, or recommended lifestyle changes can feel complex and overwhelming.

This is particularly true for women identified through population testing programmes who have no personal or family experience of cancer.

Without that lived experience, understanding risk and deciding which preventative options feel right can be challenging.

This is why simply identifying risk is not enough. People must also be given the information, support and confidence they need to make informed decisions about their health.

To help address this challenge, Prevent Breast Cancer is funding new research led by Professor Michelle Harvie at The University of Manchester.

The study will explore how women identified as BRCA carriers through the NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme understand their risk and the factors that influence their decisions about prevention.

Through interviews and questionnaires, researchers will investigate attitudes towards different prevention options, including preventative surgery, risk-reducing medications and lifestyle changes.

The findings will help inform how healthcare professionals communicate risk and support women who receive BRCA results through population-based testing programmes.

Professor Michelle Harvie said:

“Identifying women at increased genetic risk of breast cancer is an important first step. To achieve the full benefits of population-based BRCA testing, we need to provide acceptable options for prevention.

Our research aims to understand how people testing positive interpret information about offers of preventive surgery, risk-reducing medications, and lifestyle changes, and what support they need to make informed decisions about prevention. Our research aims to ensure that people are not only given knowledge about their risk, but also clear and personalised pathways to reduce it.”

The success of The NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme has demonstrated the potential of population-based genetic testing to identify people at increased cancer risk before disease develops. The decision to make the programme a permanent NHS service is therefore a significant milestone for cancer prevention and a strong endorsement of this approach.

As genetic testing becomes more widely available, understanding how people respond to this information will become increasingly important.

At Prevent Breast Cancer, we believe the future of prevention lies not only in identifying risk but in helping people act on it.

By combining advances in genetics, risk prediction and prevention research, we move closer to a future where more breast cancers can be prevented.