Lung Disease

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 30 November 2016.

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Photo of Emma Harper Emma Harper Scottish National Party

5. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the establishment of a respiratory task force to help tackle lung disease. (S5O-00400)

Photo of Aileen Campbell Aileen Campbell Scottish National Party

We are working closely with the respiratory national advisory group to support local improvement in respiratory care through the development of a respiratory health quality improvement plan. The plan will aim to support national health service boards and respiratory managed clinical networks in making local improvements in respiratory diagnosis, treatment and care.

Photo of Emma Harper Emma Harper Scottish National Party

Does the minister agree that charities such as Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, the British Lung Foundation and Asthma UK are doing important work on lung health in Scotland? Will she maintain regular contact with those stakeholders and engage with their recommendations for how best to deal with lung disease?

Photo of Aileen Campbell Aileen Campbell Scottish National Party

We recognise the valuable contribution that our third sector partners make in supporting people who live with respiratory conditions. To offer a couple of examples, we supported the development of resources with £160,000 of funding, and one of those—my lungs, my life—is an online resource that was developed by Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland to help people to understand and self-manage their condition. We also recently approved funding of £112,000 to CHSS to support the development of an online learning resource for professionals.

Photo of Colin Smyth Colin Smyth Labour

There has been a welcome decrease in the proportion of people who smoke—not least as a result of the ban on smoking in public places that Labour introduced in 2006—but the rate of decline is much slower in the most deprived areas. That level is not expected to reach the Government’s 2034 target, although 60 per cent of those who access smoking cessation services live in the most deprived areas. Given that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the only major cause of death for which levels are rising in Scotland and given that it is much more prevalent in socially deprived areas, does the minister believe that developing an action plan to tackle the slow pace of decline in smoking in the most deprived areas should be a Government priority?

Photo of Aileen Campbell Aileen Campbell Scottish National Party

Regardless of party membership, we probably share the understanding that inequalities exacerbate some of the public health challenges that we face as a country. The Labour Party is to be congratulated on having introduced the groundbreaking legislation that was mentioned. In the same spirit of cross-party co-operation, it should be recognised that we have taken forward other bits of work to stop some of the poor choices about smoking, alcohol or drug dependency impacting most heavily on our most deprived communities.

We should work together to tackle such things. We have a tobacco strategy that sets out some of the areas in which we want to make more progress, and Colin Smyth will recognise that the legislation to ban smoking in cars with children will come into force next week. Work goes on across the political parties to ensure that we can make a difference but, like Colin Smyth, sometimes we are all impatient for change to ensure that everybody has a fair chance to flourish and that our most deprived areas get the chance for better health outcomes. I hope that we can work across the political parties in a spirit of consensus to make the difference that we all seek.

Photo of Donald Cameron Donald Cameron Conservative

I note what the minister said about the diagnosis and treatment of lung disease. The minister might be aware of the British Lung Foundation’s report “The Battle for Breath”, which considers the impact of lung disease across the United Kingdom. It states that more can be done to improve awareness, availability of screening and prevention, in particular. What is the Scottish Government doing to improve in those areas?

Photo of Aileen Campbell Aileen Campbell Scottish National Party

We know that “The Battle for Breath” sets out a number of recommendations, which we will take on board. We will continue to work hard to ensure that diagnosis is better, and I have outlined some of the ways in which we have funded our third sector partners to help people to cope better with their condition. We will consider all ideas and recommendations to improve the situation across the piece.