Latest News

Better Cancer Care

The Scottish Government has unveiled a new cancer strategy, Better Cancer Care: An Action Plan, detailing what they will do to improve services for cancer patients. Cancer Research UK welcomes the publication of this action plan which demonstrates a real commitment from the Scottish Government to improving cancer services across the country. This document is an important step towards our shared goal of improving cancer services for all.

Smoking remains the biggest preventable cause of cancer in Scotland and we are pleased to see further commitments to the ongoing drive to reduce smoking levels, and particularly for further legislative controls on the sale and display of tobacco. Cancer screening saves lives. The breast, cervical and bowel cancer screening programmes play a vital role in early detection and treatment and continued investment and support for their development is incredibly important. However, people must be encouraged to attend for screening when they are invited, particularly those groups with lower uptake levels.

We know that waiting for cancer treatment to start can be a very distressing time, so we are delighted to see new commitments to reduce waiting times for cancer treatment to 31 days, and to include patients referred from screening services in this target. Further to this, the focus on early detection and diagnosis is welcome as we know that we need to diagnose more cancers earlier. In terms of cancer treatment, the plans to look into expanding radiotherapy and improving access to new cancer medicines should also help improve cancer survival rates. We are also pleased to see a clear focus on research. Cancer Research UK is working with the Scottish Government to develop Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres across Scotland, and this, along with challenging goals relating to clinical trials recruitment and under-represented groups, will have a significant impact on the development of important new treatments and their use in clinical practice. However we note with concern the widening inequalities gap in Scotland and urge the Scottish Government to redouble its efforts to reduce inequalities in cancer incidence and mortality.

Many of the commitments in the plan will improve survival chances and reduce anxiety for patients. But the NHS must have the extra money needed to meet these goals, and so further details of the specific investment required to implement the plan are essential.

Cancer Research UK is looking forward to working with the new Scottish Cancer Taskforce to deliver on these commitments and develop a stronger approach to preventing cancer, research new ways of detecting and treating the disease, and to improve the quality of care provided to patients. Our Cancer 2020 campaign launched in 2006 and urged Ministers in all four UK nations to plan for the future of cancer. We handed in over 265,000 petition signatures to the Scottish Parliament in February 2007. For more details,visit www.cancercampaigns.org.uk.