Chamber and committees

Some submissions that the committee received in response to its call for views emphasised that patient safety would be better served by investing in safe staffing levels. We explored that idea in some detail. For example, doctors undertake twice as many patient contacts each day as is recommended, which is caused by poor workforce planning.

Do you envisage the commissioner having a role in safe staffing, given the implications for patient safety?

Figures from NHS Grampian show that two people have waited more than five and a half years for in-patient treatment. In NHS Grampian, for orthopaedic surgery alone, waiting times are 18 to 24 months, and more than 3,800 people are on the waiting list. I have a constituent on that list who is in debilitating pain, and that is impacting her physically, emotionally and financially. No meaningful progress has been made to reduce the number of people on waiting lists, as Kate Forbes has said. Our health secretary, Humza Yousaf, is focused more on the Scottish National Party’s succession plan than on the NHS recovery plan. What does the First Minister have to say to my constituent and to the thousands of other people who are suffering in pain on those waiting lists?

This week, Wayne Couzens was sentenced to a further 19 months in prison for three offences of indecent exposure. That is on top of a whole-life sentence for the horrendous murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard in March 2021. Sarah Everard was simply walking home from a friend’s house when she was kidnapped, raped and murdered.

I begin with Wayne Couzens’s latest sentencing because Baroness Kennedy, who chaired the independent working group on misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland, said in relation to that horrendous case:

“This police officer was known to be peculiar in relation to women but also had recently been exposing himself and nothing had been done about it.”

She continued:

“If you don’t act on the lower level stuff, then it creates a subsoil from which much more serious crime like rape and homicide takes place.”

So many women and girls—too many—have experienced the so-called “lower level” stuff. Some might know that they have experienced misogynistic conduct and behaviour at the hands of men, in person or online, but others do not. It has become normalised rather than criminalised. Misogyny needs to be better defined so that people understand what it is and what it looks like. They need to have the right language.

There are laws that address threatening and abusive behaviour, stalking and breach of the peace, which are often seen as less-serious crimes. However, those laws do not capture the sex-specific experience of misogynistic behaviour. They do not capture the fear and the humiliation that are experienced by women and girls.

We know that sexual crimes in Scotland are at their highest level on record. In Aberdeenshire, in my region, the number of rapes and attempted rapes soared by 104 per cent in one year. Police Scotland responds to a domestic abuse call every nine minutes and officers attend around 60,000 incidents every single year.

One such example involved Erland Borwick, a fisherman from Inverbervie, who was jailed for 16 months earlier this week after witnesses said that he threw his girlfriend around like a rag doll. It is reported that Borwick described his actions to the police as “a massive domestic”. That incident was not an argument; it was cruel and it was a violent assault that resulted in serious injury and permanent disfigurement.

If we do not challenge misogyny—if perpetrators can get away with misogynistic harassment and abuse—we will never change from the status quo and women and girls will never feel equally safe; they will never see justice.

The reality is that when it comes to violence against women and girls, the criminal justice system in Scotland needs significant reform—not only in how the law captures misogynistic crimes but in the way that victims are treated. To that end, the recommendations from the independent working group on misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland, which was chaired by Baroness Kennedy, seek to address gaps in the law relating to misogyny. Lady Dorrian’s reforms, meanwhile, seek to improve the experiences of women and children in the criminal justice system.

The consultation on reforming the criminal law to address criminal misogyny that the cabinet secretary has outlined today feels long overdue. Many women were frustrated that sex was not included as a protected characteristic in the hate crime framework two years ago, and this latest consultation process is only just getting under way, with no legislative deadline in sight. We will, of course, closely scrutinise the draft legislation when it is introduced in the Scottish Parliament. In the meantime, I urge the Scottish Government to consult women and women’s groups as widely as possible on the proposals.

A question that parliamentarians and policy makers often reflect on is the extent to which changes in the law can change behaviour at societal level. When it comes to misogynistic crimes, my feeling is that any changes in the law must be accompanied by sufficient resources to make perpetrators truly and meaningfully accountable for their actions. That means having enough police and court capacity to ensure that changes are deliverable on the ground as well as in statute. It means that the punishment should match the crime and it means that the victim should be prioritised over the offender.

For too long, women have had to change their behaviour to protect themselves. It is time for the system to change to protect us and, as we have heard today, boys and men need to call one another out.

To ask the First Minister whether she will provide an update on the Scottish Government’s progress towards reducing the number of people on hospital waiting lists and ending long waits for national health service treatment. (S6F-01899)

My wife and I were carers to two elderly parents with dementia. I have experienced the condition from both sides—as someone with caring responsibilities and as someone who saw at first hand how two wonderful people’s lives were increasingly impaired by a loss of independent function. I have also seen how social care staff in the north-east have cared gently and attentively for people who live with dementia, and I pay tribute to them today.

The Scottish Government needs to back up its rhetoric on valuing social care workers, because they are tired of hearing platitudes. There has clearly been some progress in laying the groundwork for a new dementia strategy, and that is to be welcomed. It will affect upwards of 90,000 people with dementia in Scotland, as well as their carers and, as we have heard today, their families.

Dementia symptoms can cause serious confusion and profound frustration for the people who live with them, and they can be very distressing for carers and loved ones. Their experiences need to be addressed in any framework, as we have also heard today.

This will also be the fourth such strategy since 2010. It is important to point out that the number of patients aged 65 or over has increased by 20 per cent during that period, as the Royal College of General Practitioners has emphasised to us. However, the reality is that the current systems and structures that are in place across health and social care simply do not have the capacity or the resources to rise to the monumental task ahead. We just are not equipped to deal with it.

We have an ageing population in Scotland and serious national health service workforce challenges, from a lack of general practitioners to shortages of community psychiatrist nurses and allied health professionals. We have a chronically underresourced social care system and a social care recruitment crisis contributing to delayed discharge and bed blocking in our hospitals. It is shocking that a patient in NHS Grampian in my region had their discharge delayed by 2,312 days. However, that is just the reality of the system.

The proposed national care service is deeply flawed and simply kicks the can down the road. We need immediate action. The Royal College of Physicians has also emphasised the wide variation in the number of consultant geriatricians across the country, with the north of Scotland having one geriatrician per 65,000 compared with the national average of one per 36,000. That must change.

Meanwhile, less than half of people who are newly diagnosed with dementia were offer post-diagnostic support during a vulnerable and potentially frightening time. Support should be person centred, accessible and available, but that is not the reality on the ground. We owe it to people living with dementia to get the fundamentals right to ensure that they have access to early diagnosis and post-diagnostic support, as well as appropriate palliative care as they near the end of their lives, as Marie Curie has called for. They should not have to bear the brunt of the dementia tax and the worry about how to cover the cost of their care.

We have had more than a decade of dementia strategies—it is time to start making a real difference.

This week, GPs in the north-east have sounded the alarm that general practice will become an extinct profession. They point the finger at a

“blatant and shameful lack of support”

from the Scottish Government—that is a direct quote. In the north-east, Friockheim medical centre, Invergowrie medical centre, Wallacetown health centre, Burghead and Hopeman GP surgeries and Fyvie Oldmeldrum Medical Group either have closed, will close or have handed back their contract.

Audit Scotland has warned again today that the key target to increase the GP workforce by 2027 is “not on track”. Can the First Minister explain why the action that her Government is taking to address GP recruitment and retention is failing miserably? It is putting patient safety at risk.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what discussions it has had with COSLA about the delivery of local services over the next financial year. (S6O-01917)

COSLA’s cries of “SOS—save our services” have been ignored by this Scottish National Party Government. That will have a massive bearing on the ability of councils in North East Scotland to properly fund even statutory public services. Now there are also question marks over the Big Noise project in Torry and the Sistema Scotland equivalent in Dundee. Aberdeen City Council and Dundee City Council are struggling to find even the meagre resources that are required to support those transformational music projects for disadvantaged young people.

Will the minister commit to discussing with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy whether fair funding for councils can be enshrined in law to help to protect services in the future?

I think that it is very important for us as a committee to progress something specifically on women’s health in rural areas.

I will make two points. First, we now have the women’s health champion, which is a major step forward. That was not factored in when the petition was lodged. It would be interesting to find out what the women’s health champion’s thoughts are on the petition.

Secondly, as you say, there is a piece of work to be done on wider rural healthcare issues, but we need to make sure that we do not water down the points that are made in the petition.