Good morning to the panel. I will ask about socioeconomic issues for women and girls in sport. We had a response from Lanarkshire health and social care organisations that told us clearly that physical activity and sport are costly. That presents a challenge when it comes to targeting subsidy and access with reduced rates and things like that, which can make a huge difference. I would be interested in Patrick Murphy’s take on my question initially. In the context that we are in just now, in which local authority budgets are increasingly pressurised, how can we do some of that with a reducing resource?

In a previous life, I served on the board of a culture and leisure trust, and there were certainly challenges. There was always a tension around reviewing charging and the eligibility criteria for concessionary rates. Have you found having to change the margins of that a particular challenge, with more people maybe moving outwith the opportunities for concessions?

Thank you, convener, and good morning. I want to follow up on the issue that was raised around people attending inappropriately, if you like. There was an ambition in the recovery plan, as part of the review of urgent care, to reduce the use of hospitals as the first port of call by 15 percentatge points to 20 per cent, although Audit Scotland highlighted that there has been a lack of progress on that. Are you tracking the number of people who attend accident and emergency as their first port of call when that is not the appropriate setting for them? What impact are those attendances having on the overall budget?

These technical amendments have to be made—this is a tidying-up exercise, if you like. Is it still the minister’s view that the timescale of April 2024 is the one to which the Government is working for full implementation?

You said that people have not had the chance to specialise. Do you acknowledge, however, that the major issue is stress and burnout?

Sorry, Kirsty, could you pause? Maybe I was not clear. I am speaking more specifically about women from a BAME background who are engaging, or not engaging, in sport. To what extent has Glasgow Life formed focus groups or engaged with Muslim women’s organisations, for example, so that they can speak about what their particular needs are?

I will pose a question to Kirsty Garrett on a slightly different topic. It follows on from Dr Gulhane’s points about black, Asian and minority ethnic women and girls. You mentioned initiatives taking place in February that tried to look at some of those areas. To what extent has Glasgow Life sat down and spoken to people from communities about their needs and what could be delivered that would help them? We will get the most acute and correct knowledge of the barriers when people who have that lived experience tell us about them. To what extent have you had engagement?

I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement. I offer my condolences to anyone who has lost a loved one to drugs here in Scotland

Perhaps especially this week, it is worth taking a moment to stop to assess the progress of this Scottish Government in getting to grips with this public health emergency, which was declared more than three years ago. Tragically, the statistics tell a sobering story. Scotland has recorded 2,269 confirmed drug-related deaths and, last week, we learned that there were 1,000 suspected drug deaths last year, including a significant spike in the last quarter.

It is also concerning that there have been delays and, at times, a seeming lack of urgency. MAT standards implementation was, for instance, promised and then delayed. We have known about the correlation between mental health and substance misuse for many years, but, by the minister’s own admission in her statement, work to deal with that has not always been clear or, indeed, quick enough.

I have two questions for the minister. The first is about timescales. The minister has stated that implementation will start by the end of this year. Can she guarantee to Parliament that that will happen? As she knows too well, there have been too many delays already in addressing this public health emergency.

Secondly, it strikes me that the big thing missing from the statement is data, which was a key recommendation of the rapid review. Last week’s publication in relation to the suspected spike in drug deaths clearly demonstrates that there is a problem in knowing exactly where the issues are and how we should tackle them, and indeed whether action is working. What will the minister do to get data right?

We are talking about people who have died. In the final quarter of 2022, excess deaths in Scotland rose by almost 10 per cent above the five-year average, which means that 1,433 more people died than would have been expected on the basis of historical trends. Each death is a tragedy, but those deaths are not a statistical coincidence. They are evidence of widening health inequalities; the normalisation of 12 hours waiting in accident and emergency; and a failure to increase cancer diagnosis rates. That is the heartbreaking reality of Humza Yousaf’s disastrous record as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, and it will be the legacy of this First Minister. Why has she allowed the national health service to decline into such a state of perpetual crisis? Does she agree with clinicians, staff and patients—and indeed her Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, Kate Forbes—that Humza Yousaf should not be anywhere near running our health service?

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle any economic inequalities faced by unpaid carers. (S6O-02014)