Chamber and committees

Cancer remains a national priority for the Scottish Government. This is reflected in the fact that more cancer patients have been treated on both the 62 and 31 day pathways in the latest quarter (Q3 2023) compared to the same time pre-pandemic. Specifically we are treating more cancer patients on time – within both standards – compared to pre-pandemic and 10 years ago (9.1% and 21.5% more, respectively, within the 31 day standard & 2.0% and 14.0% more, respectively, within the 62 day standard).

To support efforts to reduce cancer waiting times, £10 million of non-recurring Cancer Waiting Times funding has been made available in 2023/24 across NHS Scotland. The majority of funding is being directed to urology, colorectal and breast – the three most challenged tumour types.

The Scottish Government also published our ten year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 along with an initial three year Cancer Action Plan ( Cancer Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026 ) in June 2023.

Over the next 10 years, our strategic aim is to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible care. The Strategy and Plan take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care, and have people living with cancer, their families and carers at their very heart.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service outsource the provision of Audio Transcription Services and the provider offers a number of turnaround service levels depending on urgency of the requirement. The standard service used costs £91.23 per hour or £1.52 per minute of audio, plus VAT, and has a turnaround time of 15 days. The figure of £129.29 per hour is for a turnaround of 24 hours and would therefore only be used where a transcript is required urgently.

The Scottish Government has committed to explore and agree an approach to end charges for non-residential social care support within the lifetime of the Parliament.

The Scottish Government is engaging with ScotRail, British Transport Police, Network Rail and Transport Focus and I will advise Parliament when a decision is reached, as previously informed.

Statistics on Scotland's public sector finances are published in the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) publication; however, statistics for Scottish public sector net debt are not available. The latest GERS publication is available at: Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland 2022-23 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Figures on UK public sector net debt are published by the Office of National Statistics. In January 2024 the UK's public sector net debt was 96.5% of GDP.

The responsibility for the balancing of grid lies with the National Grid Electricity System Operator. More information including data on balancing costs can be found here: Balancing costs | ESO (nationalgrideso.com)

The Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey is designed to collect information on experiences of all cancer types involving an inpatient stay or day case, where it is appropriate to do so. 10% of responses to the 2018 Cancer Patient Experience Survey were from patients with haematological cancers.

To ensure a sufficiently large response to the Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey, a census approach was taken. This means that surveys were sent to all eligible patients, rather than just a restricted sample of them. Just under 8,800 people were invited to participate in the 2024 Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey.

To maximise the survey response and make the survey as accessible as possible, so that we collect information on the experiences of as many people as possible, the survey can be completed online, on paper or over the phone. A language line is available for those who do not speak English and the online questionnaire contains a number of accessibility features including the ability to change font size, the option to switch to a high-contrast colour scheme and screen-reader compatibility.

The sample was selected from a national dataset containing records of acute hospital activity (SMR01) to identify people aged 16 or over with an inpatient or day case record with any mention of cancer and a discharge date between 10 October 2022 and the 30 June 2023.

In order to confirm the diagnosis of cancer, and to minimise the risk of sending surveys to patients who did not have cancer, the Scottish Cancer Registry (SMR06) was used to quality assure the survey sample. Individuals who were identified from the hospital records, but did not have a confirmed Scottish Cancer Registry diagnosis were excluded from the sample.

It's critical that we minimise the risk of causing distress to the survey recipients when carrying out the survey. To minimise the risk of distress, some patients are excluded from the survey because the patient may not recognise their diagnosis as cancer or the cancer has complex clinical definitions. These include:

• Patients whose tumour morphology is defined within the Scottish Cancer Registry (SMR06) as benign, uncertain or in situ.
• Patients with non-melanoma skin cancers (ICD10 code C44).
• Patients with rare haematological cancers with complex clinical definitions (ICD10 code of C84).
• Patients with Carcinoma in situ of breast (ICD10 code of D05).
• Patients with insulinoma (ICD03 code of 81513).

An analysis of 2024 Cancer Patient Experience Survey results by cancer type will be one of the outputs of the survey.

The workforce review in oncology was an NHS internal review with no plans to publish. The Scottish Government is using its findings to inform the new Oncology Transformation Programme. This is an action of the Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-26.

A final report of the first two years of Scotland’s early adopter Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services, was published by the University of Strathclyde on Thursday 29 February highlighting its success, and can be found at: Final Report of the Evaluation of Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services - Strathprints

The co-production process through which stakeholders are designing the Centre for Teaching Excellence will conclude in the first half of 2024, followed by a process to identify a suitable host institution(s). We expect the Centre for Teaching Excellence to launch shortly thereafter.