Cancer strategy: draft vision, aims and priority areas

Ensuring sufficient resource (mainly ensuring there are sufficient staff) is available to treat patients diagnosed with cancer in a timely fashion. This is lacking currently and thus efforts to achieve faster diagnosis etc will just hit the bottleneck of inadequate treatment resource if this is not tackled first. This is not just about making funding available. You will need to ensure that more medical, nursing, pharmacy, radiography staff are being trained (and retained rather than swanning off to Australasia etc after training here).

The buildings providing services need to be of adequate size/quality to cope with the demands/staff space needs - which most are not now.

Those in patients less than 80 years old where use of resources achieves much better outcomes than in those over 80 years.
The SMC should also look at cost effectiveness based on age bands; some drugs should be available to younger but not older patients due to much lower benefits in older patients.
This is not age discrimination, this is the reality of life.

Staffing levels in all aspects of cancer journey, but single point of contact is merely 'nice to have' rather than vital and resource should actually go to where it will make the biggest difference to outcomes (not just public perception issues)

too many short term 'political' targets are not helpful. Longer term focus on providing sufficient staff/resource for all aspects cancer care is more appropriate

well - it states the obvious!

again - these are obvious

again - all fairly obvious

yes - again all fairly obvious needs

Life is carncinogenic. Euthanasia at age 60 would prevent vast majority of cancers!
Failing that, ban smoking full stop. Treat it as a class A drug.

Support development of cell free circulating tumour DNA detection by blood sampling.

Ensure sufficient staff/adequate buildings to support such services.
PET scanner provision for Highlands asap to overcome inequality of access to such scanning!

Mainly.
There is a difference between what is realistic for an individual and what is realistic for the rest of society that is paying for healthcare. An increasing number of hugely expensive therapies can be delivered to the very elderly/frail BUT with limited benefits to the individual and often nothing but cost to society as a whole.
Government &SMC must actually set limits and then stick to them even when someone complains about lack of access to some treatments.

In general yes. Access to euthanasia for those at end of life must be made available.

If diagnostic/treatment services are adequately resourced there will not be time for 'pre-habilitation'. Many patients will never be suitable for such in any case due to effects of their tumours/co-morbidities. This will have minimal impact on outcomes.

and no

Patients are not treated in one health board at a time or across their lives

You must provide proper/fully functional electronic patient records systems that support all specialities/healthcare professions ways of working and that cover the entirety of Scotland (and can accept transfers of data from rest of UK - even if the SNP get their way) as the current systems are wholly inadequate and create too many barriers to efficient/safe patient care. This will do more for all patients (not just cancer patients) than any amount of data collection will ever achieve! It would also make data collection easier.

The rest of your proposals are mere niceties by comparison.

see above

see above

Trends on overall survival (at a much faster rate of updating than ISD provides) for the specific types & sub types of cancer.
Trends in disease free survival too.
Quality of patient/family experience at end of life especially before and after the introduction of option for euthanasia.

cell free circulating tumour DNA detection developments where feasible - likely best as a single centre service for Scotland (not necessarily in the central belt!)

difficult - and not appropriate to all cancers. Perhaps reasonable for non-haematological cancers. Look at current rate of 'earlier stage' and aim for a little better.

Aim for all to be improved but with more focus mainly on those where it actually makes a difference to long term outcomes

Don't let patients ask for access to service is some tiny little local rural/community hospital as it will not be efficient or sustainable to provide services in such locations.

Go to a location with good expertise/sustainable service.

to be rapidly seen once referred for likely cancer (<1 week ideally), to then rapidly undergo diagnostic procedure(s) (<1 week ideally) and for rapid turnaround of result/diagnosis generation (<1 week ideally). Then rapid access to those that can initiate treatment.

the very elderly should not be a 'protected group' in this regard. Younger patients with more life to lose should be given priority in accessing services and accessing treatments.

You should include those living in 'remote locations' (e.g most of the Highlands and Islands) as marginalised as they definitely have greater difficult accessing all health services including cancer related health services. Needs to be made easier for such patients to stay close to a hospital (but not in hospital) when needs be as this would expedite progress through diagnostic pathways.

see 16a. ?subsidised public transport too?

YES - see 16A and b.

Place a PET scanner in Inverness asap too.

Increase the training, provision and retention of all staff groups needed.

Current services pressures hamper recruitment and retention and we are thus is a downwards spiral. This has to change....but aided by restricting access to services/treatment for the very elderly where the focus should be more on good palliation.