Our work with partners to speed up the introduction of newborn screening for Spinal Muscular Atrophy
9 July 2025
Newborn screening is the quickest route to a diagnosis of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), where early treatment is vital to minimising irreversible damage. Delays in treatment risk the ability to walk, quality of life and chances of survival. But the process to add SMA to the national newborn screening programme has met with delays and continues to move forward at a slow pace. We’re working with our partners to change this.
Every baby in the UK is offered some screening tests in their first six to eight weeks. As part of this, the newborn blood spot (heel prick) test is done around five days after birth to check for rare but serious health conditions.
The UK currently only screens for nine conditions through newborn screening.
Most babies are healthy and won’t have any of these conditions. But for those who do, the benefits of screening can be life-saving.
In May 2025, we reached a major positive milestone in the journey to evaluate SMA newborn screening. The search officially began for a supplier to start collecting data on how SMA screening might work. While new research has also been published exploring how the UK might improve its newborn screening programme, based on learnings from 14 other countries.
Missing the opportunity to minimise irreversible damage
The UK continues to fall behind the growing number of European countries screening for SMA at birth.
The longer it takes for newborn screening for SMA to be introduced, the more babies will be diagnosed too late. Leading SMA clinicians have found that children born in the UK have ‘substantially different outcomes’ compared to those in many countries with newborn screening. This is because every delay means more babies miss the critical window for early treatment, risking their ability to walk, their quality of life, and even their chances of survival.
What’s the latest on the evaluation of newborn screening for SMA?
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) reviews and decides which conditions to add to the newborn screening programme. In 2022/23, the UK NSC started reviewing evidence to update its previous 2018 recommendation not to screen babies for SMA. As part of this, there are plans to run a pilot (called an ‘in-service evaluation’ or ISE) to collect data on how newborn screening for SMA would work in real world NHS services. However, the ISE has not yet begun, with the process to identify a supplier to run the ISE almost a year behind schedule.
A major milestone was reached in May 2025, when the long-awaited “call for research” to identify a supplier to run the ISE was published.
The planned ISE has the potential to be split into two phases (determined partly by supplier proposals).
The planned ISE has the potential to be split into two phases (determined partly by supplier proposals).
Phase one would mainly be about the feasibility of screening newborns for SMA. If this is feasible then a move to phase two (see next point).
Phase two of the ISE should be designed to allow for babies across the UK to be screened, while data continues to be collected.
What we’re calling for to speed up the introduction of SMA newborn screening
We’re calling on the UK NSC to complete its review of newborn screening for SMA at the earliest opportunity.
In particular:
In the short-term, we’re encouraging an efficient approach to the ISE that minimises the overall timeline. Phase one of the ISE should last no longer than one year.
In the longer-term, we want the ISE rolled out to cover all babies in the UK as soon as possible.
Planning in this way would help ensure SMA is added to the national newborn screening programme at the earliest possible opportunity.
What the UK could learn from other countries doing newborn screening
Our partners at Genetic Alliance UK (GAUK) work to improve the lives of people in the UK affected by rare conditions. By comparison, limited progress has been made in recent years to modernise the UK NSC’s decision-making processes.
Their recent report into newborn screening highlights how the UK continues to screen for fewer conditions than in places like Europe, the US and Australia.
It finds there are also challenges around procedures, infrastructure and data collection, that risk worsening health inequalities among the four UK nations.
There can be important differences between UK health systems and those abroad. Nevertheless, the GAUK report recommends the UK explore five areas of learning from those other countries. For example, the UK NSC could work better with patient organisations to fully use the lived experience of people living with rare conditions. Increasing transparency would also make it easier to understand what progress is being made. It would help organisations like ours to engage more constructively and identify what evidence gaps we should focus on filling.
“By adopting these and other learnings, the UK could offer faster diagnosis of rare conditions, raise equitable health outcomes, and help secure the best possible start to life for every child.”
What next?
A final decision about who runs the ISE won’t be reached until April 2026. By then another year will have gone by before the evaluation has even begun.
In the coming months:
We’ll be closely monitoring how the ISE may be implemented.
Going forwards, the UK SMA Newborn Screening Alliance will be writing to ministers to keep this issue on top of their agenda.
At the same time, we’ll also be working with GAUK to share their findings about how to improve the overall decision-making process around newborn screening in the UK.
A Rare Find is a comedy short film with a difference…as it hopes to raise awareness and start conversation surrounding newborn screening, the blood spot/heel prick test, and the desperate need for positive progress within the current UK newborn screening programme.
Most babies are healthy and won’t have any of these conditions. But for those who do, the benefits of screening can be life-saving.