Meeting of the Parliament 10 September 2025
I thank Stuart McMillan for bringing the debate to the chamber. I also thank him for his contribution in raising so many of the issues that people with bladder cancer face.
Having listened to the debate, I also thank Emma Harper for her contribution about her nursing experience and Dr Gulhane for his contribution about some of the other technologies that we can use. All the speeches so far have been really helpful. It is important that the Parliament considers this cancer, given that we have such poor outcomes in Scotland. Mr McMillan described the reasons for that well, so I will not set them out again. Raising awareness of cancers such as bladder cancer is pivotal to ensuring early diagnosis and improving prognosis.
In my short contribution, I want to raise the issue of health inequalities. The current health inequalities in Scotland are significant. Unfortunately—as, I know, we all agree—they are worsening, particularly in relation to healthy life expectancy, with stark differences between the most and least deprived areas. We all want to make a difference to that.
Health inequalities exist across a range of health conditions, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, poor oral health and—crucially, given tonight’s debate—cancers. We have to make sure that communities come forward for screening in a timely manner. The latest public health figures show that the incidence of all cancers was 24 per cent greater in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived and that death rates were 78 per cent higher. We take that very seriously. I am sure that the minister will remark on it, as I know that she works hard to ensure that we have strategies to address it.
Screening and early detection are incredibly important if we are to turn around cancer outcomes, particularly for bladder cancer, as we have heard tonight. People do not always come forward for tests and screening, but screening gives us the opportunity to make sure that our most vulnerable constituents access important services. At times, the Government has run early cancer detection campaigns, which I support. In my research for the debate, I was particularly pleased to read about the STV and Fight Bladder Cancer blood in pee campaign, which ran in Scotland in December 2024 to raise awareness of bladder cancer. That was one of the few things that I could find specifically on bladder cancer.