The tests will be done in a clinical setting during the pilot scheme (Image: Getty)

       A million people are to be given a new blood test that is designed to spot 50 types of cancer early, NHS chiefs say.

       The Galleri test is expected to find 5,000 potential cancers a year before sufferers even notice symptoms, meaning they can begin treatment at a very early stage, which is key to patient survival. The test will transform cancer care, with the eventual aim of people doing the test themselves at home.

       The pilot scheme will start next year if results from a smaller trial are positive, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard announced yesterday. Ms Pritchard said the NHS trial of Galleri, developed by US company Grail, could radically change the way cancer is diagnosed.

       Read more: Six difficult-to-spot symptoms of rare cancer

       Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, announced the initiative (Image: PA)

       She added: "Lives are saved when cancers are caught early, and this test has the potential to transferm cancer care forever, especially for the types that often don't show symptoms until a later stage when they can be much harder to treat."

       Dr Gillian Rosenberg, who leads the innovation team at NHS Englands National Cancer Programme, told the NHS Confed Expo conference in Manchester modelling suggests a positivity rate of one per cent - about 5,000 positive referrals a year.

       About four in 10 such cases will turn out to be cancer, research suggests.

       Dr Thomas Round, the primary care lead at King's College London's cancer prevention trials unit, said the tests would prove particularly valuable in picking up cancers such as pancreatic, in which symptoms only appear when the disease is far advanced and the patient has very poor survival prospects.

       The pilot scheme will involve participants taking blood tests in clinical settings.

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       Early detection of cancers means treatment is much more likely to be successful (Image: Getty)

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       But Dr Round said in future, blood tests might be posted out for self-testing. He said: "A lot of companies are now offering home blood-testing kits. So in London, if patients want to have sexual health testing, they go online, ask for a home test kit and it comes round to your house.

       "So actually it could be, in the future, that people do their own testing. Think of the Covid pandemic - we were all testing at home, engaging with our health."

       Dr Round added that the tests could be particularly valuable in dealing with "ping pong" patients, who get sent for one test after another as doctors struggle to make a diagnosis.

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