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The Scottish Government published our Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 along with an initial three year Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026 in June 2023. The strategy and plan take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care with an ambition to provide person centred care for all.

The actions contained in the plan will enable health and care professionals to work in partnership with the people they care for to ensure shared decision making with realistic medicine approaches in mind.

Scottish Government launched Single Point of Contact pilots in 2020, which ensure people recently diagnosed with cancer have person-centred support and can discuss their specific circumstances. This helps ease anxieties related to their care and treatment plans and to relay the support available to them and their families. Scottish Government is considering how best to scale up this approach.

We are also working in partnership with Macmillan to improve the service we offer patients with cancer through the Transforming Cancer Care Programme. This partnership is worth £27 million and is the first of its kind in the UK. The programme ensures that every patient with cancer in Scotland has access to a specialist key support worker, who can provide emotional, financial, and practical support to those who need it most.

The Scottish Government continues to use a range of methods to ensure meaningful public input to our work, including focus groups and formal public consultation.

The Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey (SCPES) asks people about their experience of cancer care. The survey is jointly funded by the Scottish Government and Macmillan Cancer Support. The most recent findings of the survey were published in September 2024.

Care Opinion is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that gives people a platform to tell their own story about their experience of health and care services. We regularly look to this resource to understand experience of cancer services by all people affected by cancer accessing services across Scotland.

(a) The Scottish Government remains fully committed to increasing the number of GPs by 800 by 2027.

Scottish Government’s Psychological Therapies and Support Framework for People Affected by Cancer supports Health Boards in considering the services which should be available to those affected by cancer, including psychological support, at any point of throughout the cancer pathway.

In 2024-25 Scottish Government provided £123 million to Health Boards to deliver improvements to mental health services for people in Scotland, including the delivery of psychological therapies for those with cancer. It is the responsibility of Health Boards to deliver this and to locally commission as required.

COSLA and the Scottish Government published Scotland’s first Data Strategy for Health and Social Care in February 2023. The Strategy outlines a number of key developments for improving technology and infrastructure to improve the care and wellbeing of people in Scotland by making best use of data in the design and delivery of services

As set out on 22 January 2024 in response to question S6W-24720 on 21 January 2024, the Scottish Government has established an Expert Group to lead on scoping work to consider and provide recommendations on how Scotland will work towards reaching the targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate Cervical Cancer.

As well as the Expert Group itself, three subgroups have been established to support the Expert Group in considering and analysing data on specific topics (vaccination, screening and cancer treatment). This will inform recommendations on how Scotland will progress towards Cervical Cancer elimination and when this could be achieved. These recommendations will be considered by the Scottish Government.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of HPV vaccination and screening.

The latest published HPV vaccination uptake data from Public Health Scotland (PHS) shows that pupils living in the most deprived quintiles had lower coverage of the HPV vaccine compared with pupils from the least deprived quintiles. We are working with PHS and territorial Health Boards to consider what further actions can be taken to increase vaccination uptake, support those eligible for vaccination, and to address any inequalities in accessing immunisation services. Reducing vaccine inequalities is one of the three primary objectives in PHS’s recently published Scotland's 5-Year Vaccination and Immunisation Framework and Delivery Plan.

Completion of consent forms is required to participate in school vaccination programmes. We therefore welcome the return of the PHS marketing campaign, “chat.sign.protect”, which will build on the messages of last year’s campaign to raise awareness of vaccines offered in secondary school and encourage an increase in the numbers of parents and young people giving consent to be vaccinated.

Timed to coincide with the distribution of informed consent materials to young people, the campaign aims to increase understanding of why these vaccines are important, and the seriousness of the diseases they protect against, and encourages parents and carers to take action and sign consent forms to ensure our young people receive the protection offered by immunisation.

Addressing the inequalities in HPV uptake and maximising the opportunities for young people to receive the vaccine will be a primary focus of cervical cancer elimination work.

The Equity in Screening Strategy, combined with an action plan, was published on 27 July 2023. The vision of the strategy is for access for all eligible individuals, across the full screening pathway. The Strategy launched alongside the Equity in Screening Network which supports the strategy by capturing local and third sector research activity and allows individuals that work across screening to share evidence, best practice and learning around screening inequalities.

Several national projects are being supported by the Inequalities Fund of £1 million. This includes changes to national IT systems to improve engagement with participants. Research and learning from past projects has shown some ways to increase access to screening and uptake, including appointment reminders and targeted follow-up with non-responders.

The Scottish Government greatly values Muslim communities in Scotland and is committed to tackling Islamophobia in our society. Since the publication of the Report of the inquiry into Islamophobia in Scotland, the Scottish Government has worked towards adopting many of the relevant recommendations made by the Cross-Party Group (CPG), and progress continues to be made in their delivery. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to tackle all forms of hatred, including Islamophobia, and promote inclusion. This work is grounded in prevention, early intervention, evidence-based approaches and meaningful interaction with people who have lived experience of exclusion and hate.