Could I thank Margaret Hutcheson for submitting this very important petition? I read the report with great interest and some shock as well, because the petition itself noted the astonishing effect that ovarian cancer has had. We’ve heard some of the figures already: in 2014, 365 women diagnosed and 238 women died of this disease. The percentage of those who failed to survive is incredibly high as well, so I think that we all agree that we need to tackle this situation, change the situation and more people need to be able to survive this very cruel disease. We have lower survival rates than other places, which shows that we should be learning from others as well.

The petition does call for a national screening programme to be introduced, and the committee’s report does note that this may not be the most effective way of improving diagnosis and finding it early at present. So, until we have a more accurate test, I do think that we should focus on other ways of having an early diagnosis, while at the same time look proactively for the latest evidence on the effectiveness of screening.

The first critical thing to do is to increase awareness of symptoms, and increase awareness of symptoms among women themselves, but also among GPs. The rates of general awareness are still very low, and that’s what recommendation 3 by the committee was. Strangely, it was refused by the Government; I don’t really understand the reasons why, if the Government is intending to do this anyway as part of their cancer plan, then why reject this recommendation?

I think there is an interesting point to be made here about the conflict between, on the one hand, the messages that we are giving here about ensuring that people do go to their GPs early enough when the symptoms emerge, so that serious illnesses are captured early and that treatments can be effective, and then, on the other hand, the messages that you should only go to the GP if things are serious, and that you should instead perhaps be looking to using a pharmacy or practice nurse, or rather see how things go.

And it is a balance between GPs having to deal with those who are okay but who are concerned, while making sure that those who are not healthy but who are not concerned are encouraged to try and go and see a GP at an earlier stage, and have a better opportunity to survive.

The second thing that we should do is bring waiting times for diagnostic tests down when someone is brave enough to go to their GP. Once again, the model that we see in Denmark of diagnostic centres or multidisciplinary centres is worth looking at as something that could contribute to increasing capacity in order to allow this to happen.

So, just to close, I’ll repeat the approval of Plaid Cymru of the messages in the report. It is a shame that not all of us in the Chamber can agree with the three recommendations, but as I said at the outset, I’m pleased that this has been submitted by Margaret Hutcheson as an issue for the Petitions Committee to discuss.