• Patients waiting up to a year for cancer treatment under SNP
• Wishart blasts Ministers for lack of action on air travel review
• Cole-Hamilton criticises SNP over new A&E and drugs reports
• MacDonald urges public to respond to Community Benefit energy consultation

Patients waiting up to a year for cancer treatment under SNP

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP today said that the SNP government isn’t giving people the best chance of surviving cancer as he revealed the longest waits for first treatment of cancer, with patients waiting up to a year.

Scottish Liberal Democrats analysed waiting times from an urgent referral with suspicion of cancer to first treatment for patients in every health board.

This analysis shows that:

• In the quarter ending March 2025, a patient in NHS Lothian waited 393 days for treatment.
• In the same period, patients in Grampian, the Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway waited 11 months for treatment.
• Between the quarter ending March 2015 and March 2025, the longest wait in NHS Borders has more than quadrupled, increasing from 76 days to 343 days.
• Over the same period, the longest wait in NHS Dumfries & Galloway has more than trebled, from 99 days to 347 days.
• Since March 2015, the longest waits in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland have more than doubled.

It comes as Scottish Liberal Democrats revealed that the median waiting time for cancer treatment across the whole of Scotland, 52 days, is the worst on record.

In June, Public Health Minister Jenni Minto admitted that “people could be dying as a result of later cancer diagnoses”.

Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

All across Scotland, the SNP government isn’t giving cancer patients the best chance of survival. These statistics show huge increases in waiting times to begin treatment after an urgent referral with suspicion of cancer, stretching up to a year.

International studies show Scotland falling behind. The fact that SNP ministers are now admitting that their failures may have caused people to die shows just how badly they have got this wrong.

Access to screening programmes, diagnoses and treatment is a postcode lottery across the country. Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see ministers who will move mountains to bring down waits and get to grips with the gaps in tech and staff.

Patients deserve better than an SNP government that keeps letting them down. Only the Scottish Liberal Democrats will bring a real vision and a real plan for delivering the care they need.

Wishart blasts Ministers for lack of action on air travel review

Scottish Liberal Democrat and Shetland MSP Beatrice Wishart has written to the Scottish Government questioning their lack of action on the Highlands and Islands Air Discount Scheme after almost a year since the publishing of Transport Scotland’s Aviation Statement which made the following commitment:

Improved connectivity in the Highlands and Islands

Action to deliver this outcome: Review the Highlands and Islands Air Discount Scheme – which offers a reduction in air fare costs for eligible Highlands and Islands residents – to consider how it could be made fairer and more effective, and to ensure it is providing value for money.

Writing to Jim Fairlie MSP, Minister for Connectivity, Wishart stated:

You are aware that transport costs are prohibitively expensive for islanders who are at the mercy of air and sea links. With the lifeline ferry costs rising by 10% last January, which an FOI revealed the level of increase was requested by the Scottish Government not Northlink Ferries or CMAL, and a lack of competition on the air route, transport costs mean that for many islanders they are restricted in how many times they can travel annually. This has an impact on business, cultural pursuits, attendance at family events and limits opportunities that others living on Mainland Scotland may take for granted. It is also encourages depopulation as people tell me that due to increasing transport costs they can no longer afford to live in Shetland and maintain relationships with friends and family living elsewhere in the UK.

I would appreciate it if you would let me know when a review will begin, how my constituents can contribute to the process, and what a timeline of this review will look like.

Wishart has been following progress on the Highlands and Islands Air Discount Scheme in a series of written questions to the Scottish Government.

On the lack of action, Wishart commented:

Once again, this SNP Government is dragging its feet, proving how out of touch it is with Scotland’s islands.

Air travel to the isles is an important part of our connection to the rest of Scotland for so many reasons from business trips to family events. It is often the faster and more convenient form of travel at short notice.

With such high costs between Mainland Scotland and Shetland, and a lack of competition on the route, islanders are grateful for the Air Discount Scheme though many would like it to go further.

The Scottish Government should get into gear and get this review off the ground. Islanders should not be left strung along like this.

Cole-Hamilton criticises SNP over new A&E and drugs reports

Responding to new A&E figures showing 2,472 (9.5%) patients spent more than 8 hours in A&E and 941 (3.6%) spent more than 12 hours, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

Staff are stuck working under pressure cooker conditions and patients are stuck having to wait hours for vital care.

We are now on our fourth different Health Secretary since this SNP government last met the A&E waiting time target. Successive SNP appointees have come and gone without making a dent.

If you’re frustrated with the SNP making you wait to access the NHS, vote Scottish Liberal Democrats on your peach regional ballot and back a party which will put in the hard graft to fix our NHS.

On the Evaluation of the National Mission on Drug Deaths: Lived experience survey, which revealed that just over half of respondents reported that, overall, they were receiving all or most of the support they needed and revealed dramatic levels of unmet need for counselling and mental health support, Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

When 100 people a month are dying in Scotland’s drug deaths emergency, patchwork care isn’t good enough.

Drug misuse casts a long shadow across Scotland. That’s why my party made access to drug and alcohol services a major part of our budget negotiations earlier this year.

If SNP ministers are serious about tackling this issue, they need to properly support services and staff, deliver essential counselling and mental health support and introduce new drug checking facilities. That’s how we can stop people dying and get people the help they need.

MacDonald urges public to respond to Community Benefit energy consultation

Angus MacDonald, MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, has urged MPs, MSPs and others to respond to the UK Government’s consultation on community benefits and shared ownership of new renewable energy projects and reiterated his call for a mandatory scheme, delivering money for local communities that host new energy infrastructure, which could be used to cut bills or provide local services.

The UK Government is currently seeking views on potential mandatory community benefits for low carbon energy infrastructure, and community energy shared ownership schemes. The consultation closes on Thursday 16th July.

Mr MacDonald has been campaigning for ambitious proposals than would stipulate 5% of revenue from projects would be paid as community benefit, including leading a debate in the UK Parliament, proposing amendments to the Great British Energy Bill and passing a motion at Scottish Liberal Democrat conference.

MacDonald also calls for communities to have the right to own a share of renewable projects, saying that ‘this is the holy grail’. Several Hebridean communities have demonstrated how significant these can be to their local population.

In 2023, research by Octopus Energy found that 87% of people would support a wind turbine in their community if it reduced their bills.

Mr MacDonald said:

I was keen to urge as many people as possible to respond to this consultation and make clear their desire to the communities who provide so much of the UK’s renewable energy benefit from their infrastructure being built on their doorsteps.

Renewables projects are being developed across the Highlands, yet the turbines are made abroad, often owned by overseas utilities firms and little of the of the billions they generate finds its way into our communities.

Rural constituents see turbines out of their windows yet pay four times the price for energy than those on mains gas. For them renewable electricity is 24p per kw, yet carbon fuel mains gas is 6p per kw.

Community benefit schemes are a way for developers to bring communities with them and deliver an energy system that everyone benefits from.

Liberal Democrats want to ensure that all national infrastructure projects and major energy generation infrastructure—not just transmission—provide minimum levels of community benefit, invested at a local level into community benefit funds for this money to be spent in areas determined by the local communities most affected.

This is a chance to shape the future whether your constituency is already impacted by energy infrastructure or may be in future, your input will be invaluable.