Only 57% of women in a Scottish Government cancer-awareness survey said they were very likely to contact their GP practice if they noticed a possible symptom of cancer, compared with 65% of men, according to an evaluation published on 9 October 2026.
The finding appears in the government’s assessment of its Be the Early Bird cancer campaign, which reached an estimated 1.22 million people through advertising intended to encourage earlier detection.
The campaign achieved four of its five formal performance objectives. It reached approximately 95% of its intended audience and generated substantial public awareness.
However, the evaluation reveals a more complicated picture beneath the headline success figures.
Women’s reported willingness to seek medical advice was lower than men’s within the surveyed population, longstanding fears about discovering cancer remained difficult to change, and the campaign’s measures of success did not directly establish how many cancers were diagnosed earlier because of the advertising.
The findings coincide with continuing pressure on Scotland’s cancer treatment services. The latest official statistics, covering April to June 2026, show that only 73.6% of eligible patients began treatment within 62 days of an urgent suspicion of cancer referral, against a national standard of 95%.
No NHS board met that 62-day standard during the quarter.
Taken together, the new evaluation and treatment statistics raise two separate questions about Scotland’s cancer strategy: whether enough people seek medical advice promptly when symptoms appear, and whether the health service can investigate and treat suspected cancer within the timescales it has established.
What the Government’s Cancer Campaign Achieved
Be the Early Bird forms part of Scotland’s Detect Cancer Earlier programme, which seeks to reduce the proportion of cancers diagnosed at an advanced stage.
The current campaign began in March 2023 and has continued through successive advertising phases.
The latest evaluation covers two periods: September to November 2025 and January to February 2026.
The campaign used television, radio, digital advertising, outdoor advertising, publicity and community events to encourage people to recognise possible cancer symptoms and seek medical advice.
Its principal target audience was adults aged 40 and over in the C2DE social grades, a market-research classification broadly associated with skilled manual, semi-skilled and unskilled occupations and some households outside regular employment.
The government selected this audience because people living in more deprived communities experience higher rates of some cancers, lower participation in certain screening programmes and greater risks of being diagnosed at a later stage.
The campaign evaluation estimated that its paid advertising reached approximately 1.22 million members of the target audience, equivalent to 95.2% of that population.
Those reached had an average of approximately 17.7 opportunities to encounter the campaign through its various advertising channels.
The campaign also recorded 17,555 visits to its website and 89 pieces of media coverage.
These figures indicate extensive distribution of the campaign message. They do not establish that every person reached paid attention to the advertisement, understood its message or subsequently contacted a medical professional.
Four Targets Met, but the Most Important Questions Remain
The Scottish Government’s evaluation reports that four of the campaign’s five specific objectives were met or exceeded.
Prompted campaign recognition reached 69%, against a target of 65%.
The proportion of respondents who correctly identified all three benefits of earlier cancer detection highlighted by the campaign reached 26%, narrowly exceeding the 25% target.
Among people who recognised the advertising, 71% reported taking some form of action as a result, compared with a target of 65%.
The proportion saying they were very likely to contact a GP practice about possible cancer symptoms remained at 61%, meeting the objective of maintaining the previous level.
The fifth target concerned fear of a cancer diagnosis and its effect on families.
The government wanted 57% of the target audience to disagree with the suggestion that they would prefer not to discover they had cancer because of concerns about its effect on their family.
The actual result was 55%.
The government characterised the outcome as a narrow miss and acknowledged that changing established fears about cancer requires repeated communication over time.
But the difference between recognising a campaign and obtaining an earlier diagnosis is substantial.
Someone may recall an advertisement, discuss a symptom with a relative or visit an information website without subsequently attending an appointment.
Likewise, a person who contacts a GP practice may undergo tests that identify no cancer or may receive a diagnosis without necessarily beginning treatment sooner.
The published evaluation measured changes in awareness, attitudes and self-reported behaviour. It did not directly link individual advertising exposure to medical records showing diagnoses at earlier stages or improvements in survival.
That does not mean the campaign produced no clinical benefit. It means that its reported marketing success and its eventual contribution to cancer outcomes are different measures.
Why the Findings About Women Require Attention
One of the most significant findings concerns the difference between male and female respondents.
Within the campaign’s intended audience, 57% of women said they were very likely to contact their GP practice if they noticed something that could be a cancer symptom. The corresponding figure for men was 65%.
The evaluation also places these results alongside earlier campaign research conducted in 2018, when the reported figures were 75% for women and 65% for men.
However, the figures cannot be treated as a perfectly consistent eight-year survey series.
The 2018 research was conducted face to face among adults aged 45 and over in the relevant social grades, while the 2025 evaluation used online surveys of adults aged 40 and over.
Differences in survey method, age eligibility and respondent composition could influence the results. The figures therefore identify a concerning change in reported attitudes, but they do not independently establish that Scottish women’s actual likelihood of seeking medical advice has fallen by exactly 18 percentage points.
The current difference between men and women within the campaign survey remains an important finding.
The evaluation does not demonstrate why the difference exists. It would be inappropriate to attribute it to a particular cause, such as difficulty obtaining GP appointments, family responsibilities or fear of treatment, without specific supporting evidence.
Nevertheless, the government’s own audience research identifies substantial concerns about cancer diagnosis, the impact on families, treatment and quality of life.
The relevant question for the next stage of the campaign is whether different groups require more specific information and support to encourage timely medical consultation.
Scotland Has a Much Larger Early-Diagnosis Target
The government’s Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023–2033 establishes an ambition to reduce the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages III and IV by 18 percentage points.
At the time the strategy was prepared, approximately 42% of the cancers covered by its staging measure were diagnosed at these later stages.
The long-term objective would reduce that proportion to approximately 24% by 2033.
The government estimated that achieving the ambition could mean approximately 5,000 fewer people being diagnosed with later-stage disease in the target year, based on the figures available when the strategy was published.
This is a substantially different outcome from advertising recognition or self-reported willingness to contact a doctor.
Earlier diagnosis can increase treatment options for many cancer types. Some cancers are more amenable to treatments intended to eliminate the disease when they are found before they have spread extensively.
Public Health Scotland’s previous analysis of 16 cancer groups illustrated the distinction.
For patients diagnosed in 2022, approximately 81% of those with stage I or stage II cancer received treatments classified as having curative intent, compared with 62.2% of those diagnosed at stage III and 9.6% at stage IV.
These are historical treatment-intent figures, not current survival rates. They vary considerably by cancer type and should not be interpreted as the proportion of patients who were cured.
They nevertheless show why the stage at which cancer is discovered is a major consideration in Scotland’s national cancer strategy.
Screening Data Shows Why Early Detection Matters
Another set of official figures illustrates the relationship between how a cancer is discovered and the stage at which it is diagnosed.
Public Health Scotland’s cancer incidence report, published on 18 August 2026, recorded 37,657 newly registered cancers in Scotland during 2024, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers under the conventional reporting definition.
The report found that cancers discovered through national screening programmes were more likely to be diagnosed at stage I than cancers discovered by other routes.
For breast cancer, 67% of screen-detected cancers were diagnosed at stage I, compared with 33% of those detected through other routes.
For colorectal cancer, the corresponding proportions were 30% and 14%.
For cervical cancer, the figures were 83% and 25%.
These comparisons illustrate an association between screening and earlier detection among the cancers included in the analysis. They should not be interpreted as proof that screening alone caused every difference, because the groups may differ in other important ways.
Screening also applies to specific age groups and eligibility criteria. It does not replace the need to investigate symptoms occurring between screening invitations or in people who are not eligible for routine screening.
The figures nevertheless provide a strong reason for Scotland’s early-detection programme to encourage both appropriate screening participation and timely contact with healthcare professionals when symptoms develop.
But the NHS Is Still Missing Its 62-Day Cancer Treatment Standard
Encouraging earlier medical consultation is only one part of the cancer pathway.
Once cancer is suspected, patients may require imaging, laboratory tests, biopsies, specialist assessment and decisions about treatment.
Scotland operates two national cancer treatment waiting-time standards.
The 62-day standard requires 95% of eligible patients to begin their first treatment within 62 days of an urgent suspicion of cancer referral.
The 31-day standard requires 95% of eligible patients to begin treatment within 31 days of the decision to treat.
The two measures begin at different points in the patient’s pathway and cover different eligible populations.
The latest statistics, published by Public Health Scotland on 29 September, cover patients beginning their first treatment between 1 April and 30 June 2026.
For the 62-day standard, there were 4,492 eligible referrals. Of the patients covered, 73.6% started treatment within 62 days, compared with 72.2% in the preceding quarter.
The latest result represents an improvement from the previous quarter but remains substantially below the 95% standard.
No NHS board achieved the national requirement.
For the 31-day measure, there were 7,048 eligible referrals, and 94.8% of patients began treatment within the standard, compared with 94.5% in the preceding quarter.
Twelve of the 15 reporting NHS boards met the 31-day standard.
The figures also show increased demand compared with before the pandemic. Eligible referrals on the 62-day pathway were 20.7% higher than in the final quarter of 2019.
Public Health Scotland reports that boards continue to identify staffing difficulties and high referral volumes as constraints on their ability to meet the targets.
These results demonstrate that improving public awareness does not by itself ensure timely treatment. The diagnostic and treatment services receiving additional referrals must also have the capacity to respond.
The Problem Is Especially Important in Deprived Communities
The government’s decision to target lower socioeconomic groups reflects established differences in cancer risk and outcomes.
Public Health Scotland’s 2024 cancer incidence statistics found that cancer incidence remained approximately 26% higher in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived areas, across the reporting comparison for 2020–2024.
The relationship varies considerably by cancer type.
Lung, colorectal and cervical cancer incidence rates were higher in the most deprived areas, while prostate cancer, breast cancer and malignant melanoma were more common in the least deprived areas.
These differences reflect a combination of risk factors, population characteristics and patterns of detection.
The government’s cancer strategy also recognises that people from deprived communities are more likely to be diagnosed later and less likely to participate in some screening programmes.
Its awareness campaigns are therefore intended not only to increase knowledge but also to reduce inequalities in diagnosis.
However, a campaign reaching most of its target audience does not necessarily mean that barriers to medical consultation have been eliminated.
The published evaluation records what participants said about their intentions and actions, rather than providing a complete analysis of how those responses translated into appointments, diagnostic tests and cancer outcomes across different communities.
That gap matters when assessing whether the programme is reaching people at greater risk of later-stage diagnosis.
How Reliable Are the Campaign’s Success Figures?
The independent evaluation used online surveys before and after the principal autumn 2025 advertising period.
The initial survey involved 535 respondents, interviewed between 30 August and 7 September. The subsequent survey involved 544 respondents, interviewed between 3 and 10 November.
Both samples were drawn from adults aged 40 and over in the campaign’s C2DE target audience.
The survey findings therefore should not be generalised to every Scottish adult or every woman in Scotland.
Self-reported intentions are also different from medical behaviour documented in health records.
A respondent may say they are very likely to seek advice without later doing so. Conversely, someone who does not express strong willingness may contact a GP promptly when an actual symptom occurs.
The 71% figure for taking action applies to respondents who recognised the campaign. It does not mean that 71% of everyone reached by advertising attended a medical appointment.
These limitations do not make the evaluation invalid. They define what its findings can reasonably establish.
The government’s assessment is primarily evidence about the effectiveness of public communication. Demonstrating a corresponding improvement in cancer diagnosis would require different data, potentially including healthcare utilisation, routes to diagnosis, cancer staging and outcomes measured over time.
What Has the Campaign Cost?
The published evaluation sets out the scale of the advertising and its reported results, but it does not provide a comprehensive expenditure breakdown establishing the total cost of the 2025–26 campaign.
It therefore does not establish a reliable cost per additional GP consultation, earlier cancer diagnosis or successfully treated patient.
Such calculations would require both verified expenditure and evidence that particular changes in clinical outcomes could reasonably be attributed to the campaign.
The relevant expenditure would include advertising placement, creative development, research, community roadshows, partnerships and evaluation, where those costs formed part of the programme.
The appropriate financial comparison is not simply whether the campaign purchased extensive advertising exposure. It is whether the spending helped generate measurable progress towards Scotland’s long-term early-detection objectives.
That question remains distinct from whether the campaign achieved the marketing targets against which it was evaluated.
The Next Test Is Clinical, Not Advertising, Success
The Scottish Government reports that
