Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Maggie Chapman for bringing the debate to the chamber. I also welcome everyone who has spoken in the debate and our guests in the public gallery.

Many of us will have friends, family members or colleagues who have been diagnosed with cancer, and we will have witnessed the intolerable toll that that takes on them and their families.

For those who dedicate their lives to protect us from the risk that fire presents to life and property, the likelihood of suffering from cancer is, as we have heard, four times higher than it is for other people. That is totally unacceptable. Despite that knowledge, firefighters still bravely face the flames and take on a job that few of us have experience of. I cannot imagine what that feels like and how brave someone must be as they continue to do the job that they love.

As with so many things relating to cancer and other associated health outcomes, we do not fully understand the details of why that level of increased exposure is so prevalent in this line of work. However, through the FBU’s brilliant report and accompanying campaign, we now know so much more. Even better, we have detailed information about the steps that we must take to protect those workers. That truly groundbreaking research lays the foundation for an improvement in the fire service, the likes of which we have not seen for many years. It is important that we take the report seriously.

The FBU’s DECON campaign is a welcome example of how first-class research can be utilised to increase awareness, to decrease harm and to achieve progress in the workplace. I believe that we should be using that model across workplaces, industries and services. I whole-heartedly applaud the FBU and the university team for their achievement and for taking forward that work.

The report not only provides evidence of the heightened risk for firefighters as a result of what they face but provides practical steps that we can get behind, which other speakers have mentioned. We can successfully minimise firefighters’ exposure.

For the sake of time, I will comment in particular on the fact that, although some of the steps that can be taken are actually very simple, as we have heard, due to the decrease in the resources that go into firefighters’ workplaces, we cannot carry out some of those simple steps at this time, which is quite shocking. I think that everyone in the chamber will agree that that must change. The research is groundbreaking, and we must take those simple steps immediately.

By taking steps such as ensuring that firefighters wear respiratory equipment at all times, prevent cross-contamination of personal protective equipment, change clothes and shower within an hour, and through having regular health screening for firefighters—and, as another member mentioned, retired firefighters—we can hugely change the outcomes, and it is essential that we do so.

I will conclude by remarking on the importance of the study for firefighters and for the way in which we look at workplaces. It is informative, and I really enjoyed reading it and thinking about how it could change the outcomes for many of our workers across industry and services and improve outcomes for those valuable professions.

I thank everyone who spoke in the debate, and I thank Maggie Chapman for bringing this crucial issue to the chamber.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would have voted no.

Will the member take an intervention?

It is only fair to ask the cabinet secretary directly about the petitioners’ request for an agency for engagement with service users to find out exactly what his view on that is. I was very interested in the discussion about a rural commissioner. It might be useful to discuss that with the petitioners, as well. What is your view on an agency?

My question is about workforce training, which is quite a wide subject. I understand that the cabinet secretary will not be able to answer all aspects of the question, but I am interested in whether NHS Education Scotland has done a lot of work on rural training and clinical places. I am interested in the notion of local places, because I believe that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that, if people can be trained locally and we can get people into those areas, we will be able to retain staff, because the jobs are interesting. There is a wider issue relating to the different professions—AHPs and nurses, for example—but I am interested in what engagement you have had with NHS Education Scotland.

Good morning, and thanks for coming to the meeting.

I am very interested in exploring the experiences of people in remote and rural areas, and how they interact with services. The Government often repeats its commitment to and engagement with service users and people with lived experience, but there is a sense from the petition and from other action groups that that engagement does not happen particularly well. Will the cabinet secretary speak a little about how he thinks that that is going? I know that there is a responsibility to do that and that Healthcare Improvement Scotland monitors that. However, how does the cabinet secretary feel that the engagement in relation to the petition has gone in remote and rural areas?

I laid out the figures, which are quite stark. Public Health Scotland data that was released in 2021 highlighted:

“There was convincing evidence that socio-economic deprivation increased the likelihood of being diagnosed with more advanced cancers of the ... prostate.”

In further data, published in 2022, there was a 10 per cent fall in the number of people diagnosed with prostate cancer, which was linked to underdiagnosis caused by the pandemic. It is absolutely essential that the Scottish Government acts decisively to ensure that men across the country are made aware of the options that are available to them in terms of tests, checks and online tools, which can both protect their health and combat the impacts of health inequalities.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to comments by Prostate Cancer UK regarding reported figures showing that men in Scotland are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer too late for it to be successfully treated than in any other part of the UK. (S6T-01104)

Does the cabinet secretary accept that he must take those figures seriously and make sure that those items are in place?

It is important that we look at the figures. The figure for individuals being diagnosed too late to be successfully treated is 12.5 per cent in London. In Scotland, the figure is not far off three times as high, at 35 per cent. The cabinet secretary must accept that that is an extremely concerning gap, creating a picture that the chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK has called “particularly shocking” in Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary accept the Government’s responsibility for addressing health inequalities in Scotland and that failures by the Scottish National Party Government are now leading to unnecessary and avoidable loss of life?