Hansard

I congratulate Linda Fabiani on securing this important debate.

We can celebrate the improvements that there have been in breast cancer survival rates. Twenty years ago, just over 60 per cent of women survived five years beyond diagnosis; twenty years later the rate is upwards of 80 per cent. However, we must remember that more than 1,000 women a year die from breast cancer.

We must also remember that five-year survival is not always the end of the matter. Nanette Milne reminded us that slow-growing secondaries sometimes arise. Of course, the primary tumour can recur, as I was reminded at the moonwalk reception last night, when a marvellous woman from Glasgow, who is still young, told me that, sadly, her breast cancer, which was treated a little while ago, has recurred.

A problem that we have in Scotland is that more people die within a year of diagnosis than is the case in other countries. That is related to late presentation, which is why the Government’s detect cancer early initiative is so important. As other members did, I welcome the recent advertising campaign in that regard and I pay tribute to the work of Breakthrough Breast Cancer in its TLC campaign.

Breakthrough should be commended for a range of work that it has done during the past few years, such as the service pledge that it pioneered, its campaign on lymphoedema, a debate about which I was pleased to introduce two years ago, and its great work in the field of research. I acknowledge the great Breakthrough Breast Cancer research unit at the Western general hospital.

I also pay tribute to the amazing breast unit at the Western general. The main reason for our much better five-year survival rates than we had 20 years ago is the improved treatments and services at units such as the one at the Western general in Edinburgh and the Beatson in Glasgow, which Aileen McLeod mentioned.

I have talked about Breakthrough Breast Cancer, but it would be wrong to forget other charities that work in the area, which are mentioned in general terms in the motion. Breast Cancer Care provides invaluable services and three years ago developed standards for secondary breast cancer that were widely praised at the time. It would be interesting to know to what extent the standards have been taken up, if the minister has information about that.

Challenge Breast Cancer Scotland had a meeting in the Parliament last Tuesday—we have had three such receptions in the Parliament in a week. I have a particular attachment to that campaign, which started in 1994 and used to be called the Scottish Breast Cancer Campaign. I remember introducing a debate in the House of Commons a few months after the organisation started up, one of the purposes of which was to praise the campaign and the enormous lobby of Downing Street that took place in 1994 to demand more research and better services—two areas in which there has subsequently been great progress.

At the Challenge Breast Cancer Scotland meeting last week a general practitioner from Glasgow gave a talk that contained a very negative message about screening. I think that the majority of people in the breast cancer field would not agree with what she said, but I support Challenge Breast Cancer Scotland’s demand for an informed choice for women about screening decisions.

I think that we can all agree with that, but I also think that positive messages must be sent out about screening as well as checking and general awareness. Given that 1,000 women a year die from breast cancer, no one—not the health service, the Government or the charities—can rest until that number has drastically reduced.

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