Scotland’s postcode lottery for cancer care
He was visiting her in hospital on his way to school when she died
Cancer took the lives of both Ed Davey’s parents before he sat his first high school exams. He was too little to remember his father’s fight with Hodgkin Lymphoma, but he remembers his mum’s grief when he passed away when Ed was just four.
He also remembers her efforts to provide a loving and happy home as a single parent with three small boys. When he was nine, cancer came for his mum as well. She battled it for three years. For her boys. For the last 18 months of her life she was bed ridden and for Ed, caring for mum became his life. Before and after school. He was visiting her in hospital on his way to school when she died. Since becoming leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, Ed has been driven by an unquenchable fire to fight for better cancer care and outcomes in the UK and better support for carers. He is one of my closest friends in politics and he has enlisted me on that crusade. Last week, I challenged the First Minister on the deficiencies of access to cancer care in Scotland.
A few days previously I had received a message from Gill. Gill and I had studied Higher Art together at school in St Andrews 30 years ago, but I hadn’t seen her since. In the intervening years, her mum, dad, cousin, aunt and two grandparents had all sadly died of cancer. Her sister Jo tested positive for a cancer gene known as CHEK2 and had preventative surgery and reconstruction in Edinburgh. But Gill was repeatedly denied genetic testing by NHS Glasgow, despite her family history. She fought and fought and after finally getting tested discovered that she does indeed carry the same gene.
But now she is being told that the surgery her sister received isn’t available in Glasgow. Just last month an international study revealed that Scotland has amongst the longest waits and poorest access to treatment for cancer.
We need to be sure that every patient in Scotland can access the highest standard of care when they need it and if it isn’t available near them, then they should have the right to travel to get that treatment. It’s clear that cancer just isn’t a priority for the Scottish Government, but it should be.