The condition has a recognisable early phase and early treatment can be shown to improve prognosis.
Effective treatment is possible and available.
The test for the condition should be relatively simple, not harmful and acceptable to the patient. The test should achieve a balance between false positives and false negatives which is related to the severity of consequences of wrong diagnosis both for the health care system and the patient. Screening must be sustainable once introduced and not just part of a limited specific initiative. Invariably the answer to these questions can only be found in lengthy, expensive, randomised trials. As the Bandolier blacklist highlights, in the current climate it is unlikely that any commissioner would or should accept the introduction of a screening procedure not validated by such trials.