Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the finding in the Information Services Division report, Cancer Mortality in Scotland (2015), that “the most deprived areas have incidence rates that are 31% higher than the least deprived areas [and] mortality rates for all cancers combined are 64% higher in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived”.
Our £100m cancer strategy ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’ includes a commitment to invest up to £5 million over the next 5 years in new activity targeted to improve outcomes by addressing health inequalities, including in screening.
In addition our Detect Cancer Early programme, which has seen investment of £41m since 2012 focuses on reducing inequalities and has seen a significant increase of 16.3% in stage I diagnoses in the most deprived areas of Scotland. This includes a 44.1% increase in stage I lung cancer diagnoses in people from the most deprived areas