Hansard

I will be fairly brief because a lot of what I was going to say has already been said. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak, and I add my congratulations to Ken Macintosh on bringing such an important health matter to the chamber.

I had involvement with cervical cancer patients for much of my professional life, initially as an anaesthetist, when they were in my care during diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and more recently when I was involved in the Grampian oncology research project, which monitored patients' progress from histological diagnosis through treatment to survival or, sadly, on occasion to death. I also helped with trials of chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with advanced cervical cancer, so I have seen at first hand the anxiety and pain that the disease can cause when it is not picked up early.

My medical education and career were both in Aberdeen, and I am proud that the early diagnosis of cervical cancer was pioneered in that city by the late Dr Betty Macgregor, who set up the cervical cytology screening service that has saved so many lives since the 1960s. She and her colleagues were meticulous and skilled in their work, and I was privileged to know them.

We are at an extremely exciting, pioneering time in the history of cervical and related cancers. There is a prospect that they could become history in a decade or two if the vaccines that are being developed against the causative human papilloma virus are as effective as the early trials indicate. Worldwide, they could save the lives of many thousands of people who face the trauma of advanced malignancy in the middle years of their lives.

If a vaccination programme is set up within the next 12 months for all girls who are about to enter their sexually active lives, the incidence of cervical cancer could be cut to almost zero in 20 years or so. As Christine Grahame said, it is encouraging that parental surveys show that there is ready support for such a programme. However, it will be vital to continue with the screening programme in the intervening years and to stress to women that it is important that they attend for cervical smear tests regularly. It is worrying that attendance in Scotland has fallen off in recent years, particularly among young women, most of whom are sexually active from an early age nowadays.

Tonight's debate will help to raise awareness of what is a fairly common disease that is readily curable provided that it is picked up early—ideally, in the pre-cancerous phase. We must continue to keep it in the public eye.

I fully endorse the motion's praise for the charities Jo's Trust, Cancerbackup and Cancer Research UK, which play a vital role in flagging up the importance of early diagnosis during the pre-malignant and totally curable phase of the disease. I also commend the charities' work to support patients who have clinical cervical cancer and their families.

It is important that a vaccination programme is put in place at the earliest opportunity. I hope that the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care will be able to tell us when that is likely to happen, assuming that the JCVI gives approval on 14 February. I hope that he will do all that he can to keep cervical cancer in the public eye and to encourage young women to take part in the potentially life-saving screening programme that is readily available to them.