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Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Babies

Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN 15067, tabled on 19 November 2024

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of testing newborn babies for spinal muscular atrophy.

Answered on

25 November 2024

Work is already underway to assess the potential merits of testing newborn babies for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

This is following the UK National Screening Committee’s two-fold recommendation in 2023, to simultaneously develop a new cost-effectiveness screening modelling study for the United Kingdom’s screening context, and to start scoping work for an in-service evaluation of newborn screening for SMA in real world National Health Services in the UK.

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