Chamber and committees

It is well over a year since the works on the Woodside viaducts began, but there has been absolutely no consultation with Glaswegians and, by the time of completion, the cost looks set to surpass the £100 million mark—the biggest infrastructure spend in Glasgow this year. Those temporary repair works might be necessary in the short term but, given our commitment to reducing climate emissions and promoting active and public transport options, will the minister commit today to ensuring that, before any new permanent works are commissioned, the Government will undertake a full public consultation exercise that examines the viability of that viaduct and looks at alternative options and international examples of how it might be replaced in the longer term?

The First Minister will be aware of the plight of Morton’s Rolls in Drumchapel, where 250 workers who have been responsible for creating an iconic Scottish brand now face an uncertain future. In the past few days, investors have come forward, and I have put Government ministers in touch with them. They are due to meet this afternoon.

Although there is undoubtedly a deal to be done here, that will require the Government to do its bit to ensure that there is a sufficient level of capital investment and business support to ensure that production can be restarted on a sustainable footing as soon as possible. Will the First Minister commit her Government and its agencies to doing everything in their power to save Morton’s, save skilled jobs in a depressed area and ensure that this household name can prosper for decades to come?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the continued repair works to the M8 motorway in Glasgow, including on their financial implications. (S6O-01983)

Can the Deputy First Minister confirm when the Scottish Government will provide the British Dental Association with the costings that are associated with the revised determination 1, so that formal negotiations on payment reform can commence?

My constituents, the Spiers family, have been campaigning for better water safety in Scotland for the past seven years, following the tragic death of their son Christopher in the River Clyde in 2016. Even competent swimmers can be vulnerable to injury or death in the water. Does the Scottish Government agree that more engagement with local authorities is required in order to establish easy access to water safety training and education across Scotland?

I start by thanking the member for Cunninghame North for bringing this important issue to the chamber.

There is often a tendency to focus on anorexia or bulimia in discussions about eating disorders, but it is important to stress that there is a broad spectrum of these illnesses, which can impact on anyone, of any background. That is why I welcome that, this year, the focus of eating disorder awareness week is on eating disorders among men. Issues around eating disorders are often discussed in relation to women, but the reality is that approximately one in four people with eating disorders are men—increasingly, young men.

A recent UK survey on men with eating disorders, which was undertaken by the excellent charity Beat, found that half of those who responded did not realise that someone like them could develop a disorder of that kind, with 76 per cent of respondents indicating that access to specialist services must be improved. That has only been exacerbated by the tendency of social media to be curated in such a way that men and boys are increasingly feeling peer pressure with regard to their body image. Perhaps the minister could respond to that specifically in his reply, particularly with regard to how we encourage positive role models and the use of social media in a positive way to reinforce messages that will provide greater reassurance to young men about how they can manage their diet and their body. We should be pursuing that as a public health policy.

In 2021, the Scottish Government published its national eating disorder services review, which included recommendations that could go some way to improving access to those services in Scotland. However, I understand that, regrettably, those recommendations remain to be fully implemented, despite increasing demand for specialist help. Indeed, the number of people in Scotland with an eating disorder who were reaching a stage of their diagnosis at which they required admission for in-patient treatment rose to 233 in 2020, compared with 125 in 2019. That was a stark increase.

However, it is likely that the reality of eating disorders in Scotland is, sadly, even more bleak than the picture that is painted by that statistic on hospital admissions alone. The data that we collect on the prevalence of eating disorders in Scotland is poor. Only data on people with eating disorders who have been admitted as in-patients to hospitals is collected centrally. That is another symptom of our hospital-centric national health system. We need to push more of that activity out into communities and focus much more on prevention.

If we had central data on every person in Scotland who has received an eating disorder diagnosis, we could have an even clearer understanding of how many people are impacted by disordered eating, which could inform the structure, capacity and design of NHS services so that they could be scaled and adjusted accordingly.

Eating disorders are deadly illnesses. Indeed, eating disorders such as anorexia claim the most lives of any mental illnesses, so we must ensure that the health service is adequately resourced to treat them as such. It is estimated that, at present, people can wait as long as three and a half years to start treatment after their illness begins. That delay is potentially fatal for many, as recovery is much more likely for patients who receive medical intervention early, when behaviour can be adapted before it becomes too ingrained.

The pandemic has, of course, had an undeniable impact on the efficiency of our national health service. However, as is often said, politics is about choices. I urge the Government to reconsider its freeze on mental health service funding so that eating disorder services can meet the growing demand for specialist support.

This is the third year running in which we have rightly debated in the Parliament eating disorder awareness week. We must ensure that we do not just talk about why people with eating disorders deserve better; we must deliver clear and measurable solutions to that major public health concern.

The member makes an important point about the pervasiveness of social media among young people in particular, including boys. Does she agree that the Government could consider a measure such as accreditation for certain social media content creators that reassure young people and provide them with good-quality advice, so that young people can be assured that they are getting good-quality, evidenced information?

I remember the iconic Health Education Board for Scotland adverts in the 1990s and 2000s, when I was young. They were very effective in pushing public health messages, but that approach has, sadly, fallen away in recent years. Will the minister consider using targeted social media advertising by the Government to reinforce positive messages?

Will the minister take an intervention?

It has been truly moving to listen to so many insights and often heart-wrenching testimony from colleagues about the impact of this cruel disease, and to realise just how widespread it truly is in our communities.

I was reflecting on the numbers that were mentioned, with around 90,000 of our fellow Scots living with dementia. That is equivalent to a town the size of Paisley, and if we were to then factor in the people who have caring responsibilities, it would very quickly grow to a city the size of Aberdeen and Dundee combined perhaps. A very big number of our fellow citizens are living with the condition in one way or another, either directly or through having a caring responsibility.

We owe it to all those people to build the resilience in our healthcare system to support them through what can often be an extremely distressing, disorientating and difficult experience, as members today have mentioned. Stephen Kerr, a member for Central Scotland, described his mother as fading away. The member for Edinburgh Western referred to the long goodbye and the very difficult process of trying to come to terms with the condition.

One of the biggest challenges is being able to share that with someone initially and deal with the diagnosis. It was concerning to hear from Gillian Mackay, a member for Central Scotland, that the number of people who get that post-diagnostic support is so low. I think that only around 42 to 43 per cent of people access that support. We do not understand why that is. Maybe it is because the symptoms are mild at the initial stage of diagnosis, or perhaps it is something else—perhaps there is not the capacity in the system, for example. We need to understand more about what is going on.

We also need to improve people’s resilience, particularly when they are preparing for the future. Issues such as the lack of power of attorney often end up becoming an impediment to discharge from hospital, which causes further issues in the system. Those are areas of deep concern.

Capacity in our care homes has been mentioned, particularly in relation to workforce challenges, as my colleague Carol Mochan, a member for South Scotland, described. We need to pay care professionals appropriately in order to build capacity in our system and allow people to have a proper professional career, which will in itself build the network that is so sorely needed. It was reassuring to hear the member for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch describe that as a key plank of her bid to become the next First Minister. I hope that the ministers sitting before us in the chamber today will agree with that endeavour; indeed, it has been a long-standing policy of the Labour Party.

Our amendment is intended to be constructive and to add extra depth to the Government motion. I hope that the minister will accept it in the spirit in which it is intended. Indeed, I believe that the member for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale mentioned that she was not a fan of strategies without clear constructive actions. We need to hold the Government to account on the delivery of clear and tangible benefits.

It is a symptom of our own progress as a nation that, as we see life expectancies increase and triumphs in medical science improve things in so many ways, other conditions, such as neurodegenerative disorders, become more of a challenge to deal with. We need to get to grips with that across our entire healthcare system. We need to change the centre of gravity of the traditional national health service model from a hospital-centric one towards one that is based on prevention in communities. That is the crux of what many members have said. The member for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, for example, spoke about the need to support community-based activity. I was particularly touched by his reference to musical memories in Springburn.

I have often heard it said that, when a person dies, a library is burned, but that can often be a very slow burn for people over many years. What a wonderful treasure trove of insights, knowledge and love we can share through that process. Although there is never really a good death in those circumstances, the idea is that it can certainly be much better than it is often experienced in Scotland today.

One example of that that has taken off quite remarkably in Scotland is the viral Facebook page, “Lost Edinburgh”, which was created by a gentleman in Edinburgh. It is widely viewed across Scotland. There is a similar page in Glasgow, “Lost Glasgow”, which is run by a friend of mine, Norry Wilson. The man who started “Lost Edinburgh” did so as part of an attempt to make a DVD of old pictures of Edinburgh so that his dad could talk about them with him. His dad could not remember things that he had talked about 10 minutes earlier, but he could talk in great detail about his childhood and his relationships. Through “Lost Edinburgh”, he got an amazing insight into his father’s younger years, which he would not otherwise have experienced. Building such a means of interaction is quite a powerful experience. It is an amazing, priceless archive of knowledge that we can share with one another, which will add great quality to relationships.

There is much that we can do to build community resilience and to support people well. Many members have mentioned the need for respite and support for the people who care for people with dementia. My mum told me about her experience, growing up, of the tragedy of her uncle, who had to care for her aunt, who suffered from dementia to the extent that he could not take it any more and ended his own life. To be constantly triggered by the loss of the person who is dearest to you in your life in front of your eyes every day must be a deeply distressing experience. It is essential that we provide the capacity to support people in that position.

We are prepared to support the Conservative amendment as well as the Government motion, and we hope that we can work together to build resilience in the Scottish healthcare system.