Guidelines : Genomic Medicine

The Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System Area Prescribing Committee has agreed to adopt the following statement from the Royal College of General Practitioners

"The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the British Society for Genetic Medicine (BSGM) recommend that health professionals should exercise caution when asked to offer, or provide, clinical expertise about the results of Direct to Consumer (DTC) genomic or genetic testing. The analytical validity, sensitivity and clinical utility of such testing may be much lower than is popularly perceived. For certain types of DTC results, there is a very high chance of false positive or false negative results. This means that patients should be offered the NHS care which would otherwise have been offered (e.g., family history and risk assessment, healthy lifestyle advice, or referral to specialist care) regardless of their DTC result.”