Experts have demanded a drastic improvement in lung cancer care to improve survival rates.

The UK Lung Cancer Coalition (UKLCC) wants to raise five-year survival rates to 25% by 2025.

An improvement on this scale would prevent more than 1300 additional deaths to lung cancer in Scotland from 2025 onwards, according to a new report by the organisation.

This would triple the current number of survivors across the five-year scale.

Dr Marianne Nicolson, a consultant medical oncologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, said: "Only one in ten people (9.8%) with lung cancer are still alive five years after diagnosis in Scotland.

"Despite concerted efforts to tackle inequalities and improve prevention and outcomes, five-year survival rates in Scotland still lag severely behind our European counterparts and compare poorly with other major common cancer types.

"Steps to improve early diagnosis, along with better treatments, will work together to improve survival."

The new report, 25 by 25: A Ten-Year Strategy to Improve Lung Cancer Survival Rates, found nearly two-thirds of healthcare professionals believe early-stage diagnosis is the key factor for improving five-year survival rates.

Conversely, less than a third of patients questioned admitted to visiting their doctor due to recognising symptoms of lung cancer.

Regional inequalities in healthcare were also highlighted as being detrimental to survival rates.

The report calls for commitment from the Scottish Government to provide the necessary resources to reduce the prevalence of smoking to 5% or less in the next 18 years, and to set new targets for early-stage diagnosis over the next five years.

The government is also urged to work with the National Institute for Health Research to provide a data programme to assess local variation for lung cancer treatment.

UKLCC chairman Richard Steyn said: "This report breathes new energy and enthusiasm into a lung cancer community which recognises that there is much more work to do.

"A lung cancer diagnosis should not be a death sentence and we hope that government policy makers and health service professionals in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland can support the UKLCC's 25 by 25 ambition."

A total of 4,117 people died of lung cancer in Scotland in 2014.