Cancer action plan 2023 to 2026

Foreword from Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care

Cancer impacts us all, whether that is directly or through our family or friends. The Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 sets out the vision and priorities of the Scottish Government for cancer over the next 10 years, with the aim to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible care to all. As we publish the strategy and this plan, the NHS is still under enormous pressure and so we must work through a recovery, renewal and redesign continuum over the ten years. In this initial three-year period of the strategy, success will be to recover and stabilise our systems and services, maintaining cancer as a priority, while the necessary recovery takes place in health systems and the wider economy.

We have developed a three-year action plan with realistic, focussed, financially prudent and achievable actions that will provide the foundation to put into place new, better and sustainable ways to deliver cancer services across Scotland. While cancer survival continues to improve across Scotland, more needs to be done and our Policy Prospectus includes a focus on improving cancer outcomes.

The strategy and plan have people living with cancer, their families and carers at their very heart, with a focus on reducing inequities in access to cancer care and cancer outcomes, recognising each person’s time of need.

We look forward to working with our colleagues across NHS Scotland, and our third sector partners and their representatives on the Scottish Cancer Coalition and Less Survivable Cancer Taskforce to help implement the plan.

Michael Matheson, MSP

Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care