Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government welcomes the report Understanding the value of lung cancer nurse specialists.

It is NHSScotland boards’ responsibility to plan and deliver services, including specialist nursing services, taking account of national priorities and local needs.

Scotland’s Chief Nursing Officer has asked nurse directors to consider the implications of recent reports on specialist nursing provision in order to share practice across boards and to help to identify areas where additional guidance or support from the Scottish Government may be useful.

The standardised mortality rates for lung cancer and other types of cancer are shown in the following table. This table shows the ten most common causes of deaths from cancer in 2012.

Table 1: Standardised mortality rates for the ten most common causes of death from cancer in Scotland 2012 (per 100,000 population):

1. Based on date of registration of death.

2. Standardised rates are based on the 1976 European Standard Population.

3. Trachea, bronchus and lung cancer.

4. Liver and intrahepatic bile ducts.

5. The mortality rate for cancers that occur mainly or only in one sex (breast, prostate) are calculated using the population for only that sex.

Source: National Records of Scotland

The national Detect Lung Cancer Early campaign fronted by Sir Alex Fergusson was launched on 6 November 2013 and activity is still underway with a repeat phase of national social marketing running from 13 January 2014. The programme has been working with NHS boards to analyse the impact of the national and local campaigns on diagnostic demand and data on the lung campaign is currently being collated. £30 million has been made available to support the Detect Cancer Early programme and it is anticipated that NHS boards will use much of this funding to provide additional diagnostic capacity.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to providing the people of Scotland with the NHS services which meet their needs and maintain high standards of care.

The Scottish Government works closely with regional cancer networks and NHS boards to ensure there is the required workforce to meet current and anticipated increases in demand for oncology services.

However, it is for each NHS board to plan and deliver high quality, safe and sustainable services, taking account of national and local priorities. This includes how best to utilise funding and deploy staff.

The Detect Lung Cancer Early campaign fronted by Sir Alex Fergusson was launched on 6 November 2013, with a repeat phase of media marketing running from 13 January 2014.

It is too early to measure the impact of the programme on five-year survival rates for lung cancer. Capital and revenue has been made available to NHS boards to support an increase in diagnostic and treatment capacity. In addition Health Improvement Scotland are undertaking a review of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer which includes lung cancer. A series of primary care education sessions focussing on lung and colorectal cancers have also taken place.

The number of lung cancer patients who are currently being treated by the NHS is not centrally available.

I attended a Scottish Parliament event hosted by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation Committee on 9 January 2014 to raise awareness of the value of lung cancer nurses.

In response to the issues raised by a number of organisations around the role of specialist nurses, the Scottish Government will host regional seminars in early 2014 to explore current provision and the future direction of specialist nurse roles in Scotland. Representatives from The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and the National Lung Cancer Forum for nurses will be invited to participate.

The Scottish Government works closely with regional cancer networks and NHS boards to ensure there is the required workforce to meet current and anticipated increases in demand for oncology services.

However, it is for each NHS board to plan and deliver high quality, safe and sustainable services taking account of national and local priorities. This includes how best to utilise funding and deploy staff.

The Scottish Government has supported the development of nursing workload and workforce planning tools to inform decisions about nursing and midwifery establishments. Application of these evidence based tools, takes into account professional judgement and local context, and includes assumptions in relation to absence levels. The suite of available tools includes clinical nurse specialists. Application of the tools has been mandatory since April 2013, and all NHS boards are expected to use the tools to inform local nursing and workforce planning.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government appreciates that the need for childcare does not stop when children start school.

That is why I have asked the Early Years Task Force to look at what sort of care could be offered for school aged children.