Scotland’s cancer strategy will not be published until next spring, Nicola Sturgeon has revealed at First Minister’s Questions.
The First Minister, who marked one year in the job today, insisted the Government is working to “make sure we get that strategy right”.
But Labour’s Kezia Dugdale said the blueprint for tackling the disease had been “repeatedly delayed” as she claimed that without action cancer could become a “deprivation disease in Scotland”.
The Scottish Labour leader said Ms Sturgeon, who served as health secretary for five years when she was deputy first minister, had been “responsible for the NHS in one way or another for six out of the last eight years”.
Ms Dugdale claimed: “The reality is in Scotland today the likelihood of somebody getting cancer too often depends on how much money they have.”
Statistics published earlier this week showed “people living in the poorest areas are 32% more likely to have cancer than those from the wealthier areas, and they are 68% more likely to die from it”.
She told the SNP leader: “That’s just not right. This is 21st-century Scotland, not the Victorian times.”
The new cancer strategy should have been published at the start of this year, Ms Dugdale told MSPs, adding that progress in tackling the disease is “largely happening in the richer parts of Scotland”.
She continued: “The English NHS has a widely recognised and welcome plan to fight the disease and we need the same here.
“In Scotland we have a system which is failing those most in need, 66% of people in the wealthiest areas are taking up bowel cancer screening, yet the figure was just 45% for people in the poorest areas.
“The most recent figures show a decline in the number of women in poorer communities getting screened for breast cancer.
“That lower rate of screening is one key reason why people from the poorest backgrounds are more likely to die from cancer.
“Without dramatic government action, we could be in danger of seeing cancer as a deprivation disease in Scotland.”
Ms Sturgeon replied: “Kezia Dugdale said the fact that people in our poorest communities are more likely to die from cancer is not right: I absolutely agree with that. It wasn’t right when Labour were in office and it isn’t right now.
“That is why we are working so hard to reduce deaths from cancer and we saw figures published this week which showed overall cancer death rates have dropped by 11% in the past 10 years.
“But the job is not done. That is why we’re working to lower cancer waiting times. Interestingly it was Labour that set some of the current cancer waiting times they never once were met when Labour were in government.”
She also told Ms Dugdale: “In all seriousness, this is far too important for party political arguments.
“Let all of us unite to say we want to see an end to the situation where people in our most deprived communities are more likely to die of cancer, I think that is something worth uniting around.”
Ms Dugdale said “bold action” was needed in the fight against cancer but she claimed that is “just not happening”.
She challenged Ms Sturgeon, whose SNP has a majority at Holyrood as well as a commanding lead over Labour in the opinion polls, to take action.
The Labour leader demanded: “With her opinion poll ratings, with her majority, with all her power, what exactly is she waiting for?”
Ms Sturgeon attacked her rival for failing to make “not one specific suggestion of what it is she thinks this Government should be doing”.
The First Minister argued it had been a “long-standing situation that people in our most-deprived communities are more likely to die younger from illnesses like cancer, from stroke, from heart disease”.
She told Ms Dugdale: “That didn’t start when the SNP came to government, that’s been something that has been true for generations.
“One of the things we’ve done in the last year since I’ve been First Minister is double the fund for new cancer medicines, a step in the right direction.
“It’s also why we put such a great priority on innovative, ambitious public health measures to improve people’s diet, to cut the incidents of alcohol misuse, to reduce smoking.
“These are the kind of policies that, frankly, shouldn’t involve party politics. Every single member of this chamber should get behind these things so we see far, far fewer people in all parts of our country die from cancer.”
Ms Sturgeon continued: “I do agree serious government action is needed to improve early diagnosis of cancer, but obviously it is more important we get people from our most deprived communities into a diagnosis as quickly as possible.
“That’s why this Government is investing £39 million in our detect cancer early programme.
“That programme has already resulted in a 4.7% increase in early stage diagnosis of cancer, alongside a 50% increase in women consulting their GP with breast cancer symptoms and increased uptake of the national bowel cancer screening programme.
“That’s the kind of serious concerted action we need to see from government.
“We will continue to do the work to get people diagnosed early, to encourage people to come forward, to make sure we’re giving people access to the best technologies and the best drugs, to make sure we’re lowering cancer waiting times and to make sure we’re doing all of the things we need to do to improve the public health of people in Scotland in every single part of our country.”