Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 February 2022
As is customary, I start by thanking Jackie Baillie sincerely for bringing the matter to the Parliament and for facilitating such a good debate involving members from across the chamber. In particular, I thank members who have shared their personal stories. I am following a very powerful speech by Stephen Kerr and some excellent speeches from members across the chamber. I will touch on many of the questions that have been asked and the themes that have been raised.
I, too, will start with a personal anecdote. As many members have already said, one in two of us will be affected by cancer, and there is probably not a single person in the chamber who has not been affected in some way, shape or form by it. We know that a couple of our parliamentary colleagues have had, or are still having, recent challenges with a cancer diagnosis and are having, or have just completed, treatment. I am delighted that some of them are back with us in the chamber right now.
My story is about my uncle Azhar. He was the cool uncle—we all have one. That is no disrespect to any of my other uncles and aunties; I love them all, but even they would say that he was the cool uncle. He was the youngest of the siblings, and they are always the coolest—he says, as a middle child. In the eternal battle of children versus grown-ups, my uncle Azhar was always on the side of the children. It is always good to have an ally like him.
He was more than an uncle to me. He took me to my first Celtic match and taught me how to play football. Presiding Officer, you and I have been on the same football team, so I should say that the deficiencies in my playing are mine alone and are not the fault of my uncle. When he took me to the football, my mum would say, “He is not to have any more junk food, Azhar.” Of course, my uncle disregarded that instruction from my mum.
He also helped me to train for the half marathon—the only half marathon that I have ever run in my life—when I was raising money for Islamic Relief. He ran with me and helped to train me for the eight weeks prior to the run. When I crossed the finish line at Glasgow Green and keeled over through dehydration because I had not taken his advice and drunk enough water, he was the one who put the medal around my neck.
He was an extraordinarily fit individual and played every sport that you can imagine, so imagine my shock at the news. I was on a Government visit to Pakistan, in my role as Minister for External Affairs and International Development, when I got a phone call at two in the morning—a phone call at two in the morning is never good news—from my sister to tell me that my uncle, who had been complaining of stomach and back issues for a while, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
I did not know much about pancreatic cancer—in fact, I knew nothing about it—so, of course, I did what anybody without a clinical background does and went on to Google. I will never forget the feeling as I doomscrolled down the page on my phone to find any semblance of good news about pancreatic cancer and found—I am afraid—that there was none. I remember that moment, and having to do Government visits the next day while being a hollow shell of myself.
My uncle battled with pancreatic cancer for two and a half years and eventually succumbed to it. Again, I will never forget that moment. In the Islamic tradition, it is often the children of the deceased who wash and prepare the body before it is laid in a coffin. I was asked to do that with my cousins, and I will never forget washing my uncle to prepare him, at just seven stones—a man who was a stocky 13 or 14 stones prior to his cancer diagnosis, but there he was, just skin and bones.
I mention that story because pancreatic cancer and less survivable cancers have been raised by many colleagues across the chamber. Dr Gulhane spoke very well from a clinical, and a human, perspective about the importance of early diagnosis of less survivable cancers. Marie McNair also mentioned pancreatic cancer in her speech.
I give a personal commitment and—perhaps more important—a commitment as the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care that we will move heaven and earth to ensure that we restore cancer services. That is important to me, and it is important to the Government. I suggest that there cannot be a more important priority for the Government or for me as health secretary than the recovery and remobilisation of our NHS. Right at the top of that priority pile must be the restoration—in fact, it is right to say the full restoration—of cancer services.
In relation to the less survivable cancers that have been mentioned by many colleagues across the chamber, it is important that the Government works with third sector organisations to raise awareness of the symptoms. I mentioned some of the symptoms that my uncle had when it came to pancreatic cancer. For many other less survivable cancers—as, I think, Jackie Baillie or one of her colleagues said—the symptoms can mean that it takes four or five visits to a GP to get a referral. Of course, by the time someone gets a referral, they can already be at stage 4, as my uncle was, so we must do more.
I hope that we can do so through the early cancer diagnostic centres that we have developed across the country. We look at the data from those centres daily. Jim Fairlie—who gave an excellent and powerful contribution, which I know that Andy would have been very proud of—said that he is looking forward to the centres being rolled out. I promise him that we are exploring that. We, of course, want to see the early data from the early cancer diagnostic centres.
We also have the national cancer plan. That document is backed by £114.5 million of investment and is not just to lie on a shelf.
The point about inequality was well made by every speaker. I will not repeat the statistics about the unacceptable care gap—which is, of course, the theme of world cancer day this Friday—because they have been well articulated in the debate. We are determined to not only narrow but close and eliminate that unacceptable inequality gap. Some of the money that we have already provided is being targeted directly at where inequality exists most obviously. I can give more details on that to any member who wishes them.
I am, of course, running over my time. There are lots of issues that I could talk about.
On screening, I am happy to have meetings with members about self-referral for over-70s. Our concern is that, if we were to resume such services at the moment, that would have a detrimental impact on people at the highest risk, because of our current capacity issues. However, the challenge from Miles Briggs and from other members across the chamber who raise the issue with me regularly is to get such services resumed as quickly as possible. I promise that there is no delay on our part.
Our workforce is incredibly important, but I am the first to admit that there are challenges among the workforce. Although we have made strides forward, I promise that we will redouble our efforts, particularly in relation to shortages of medical oncologists. At the moment, such shortages are felt most acutely in NHS Tayside, but there are issues across the entire country.
I, again, thank Jackie Baillie and colleagues across the chamber for raising exceptionally important points. On any issue, but particularly on this issue, my door is always open for us to work together to close the unacceptable cancer care gap that exists around the country.