Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary obviously does not like what I am saying.

The reality is that we are seeing a decline in dentistry under this SNP-Green Government. Dentistry in Scotland is on a cliff edge.

Humza Yousaf announced today that the bridging payment will remain in place until 31 October this year, after months of uncertainty for dental practices that feared that they might collapse. He and the SNP Government must urgently get a grip of the situation and bring forward a credible plan to restore routine dental care and the confidence of the profession.

My question is for Fraser Morton. You have talked us through follow-up towards action. In your submission to the committee, you raise concerns that no person or organisation would be compelled to accept or implement a recommendation. Based on your experience, how likely is it that a recommendation would not be implemented by a public body? What specific ways would you like the powers of the PSC to be strengthened so that they can enforce the recommendations?

Do you mean similar to the Health and Safety Executive?

My line of questioning builds on the previous one. It is directed first to Rosemary Agnew and then to Simon Watson. I was particularly interested in your comments about the breadth of the remit of the PSC and the lack of clarity about the role’s relationship with the existing clinical guidance landscape. I have two questions. First, how would you envisage your organisation working with the PSC? Secondly, are you concerned about the potential for duplication and overlaps?

I have a quick question for Rosemary Agnew. The Finance and Public Administration Committee recently highlighted concerns regarding the financial impact of having yet another commissioner. This builds on what Dr Gulhane has said. What resourcing is necessary for the officeholder to be effective?

Baroness Cumberlege, in Scotland we have the Scottish patient safety programme; the NHS incident reporting and investigation centre; Healthcare Improvement Scotland; professional regulatory bodies such as the General Medical Council; the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011; a patient advice and support service that is provided by Citizens Advice Scotland; and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. How do you envisage a patient safety commissioner fitting into a seemingly saturated landscape without duplicating the work of existing bodies? Is there any evidence of that occurring in England?

I had two questions, but the second has just been answered, so I thank you for that.

My understanding is that the proposed approach in Scotland would mean that the commissioner would not consider individual cases but would instead monitor systemic issues: you have talked about the golden thread.

The “First Do No Harm” report emphasised that a patient safety commissioner should be a public leader with a statutory responsibility to champion the value of listening to patients. Are you satisfied that the approach that would be taken in Scotland would satisfy that recommendation?

As I have listened to this afternoon’s debate, it has been painfully clear that this SNP-Green Government has run out of ideas and has run out of road. The cabinet secretary says that the NHS is facing challenges. The fact is that under Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s NHS is not just on life support—

Presiding Officer, I have only just begun. I might look keen, but I would like to continue.

As we have heard today, we are seeing patients stuck in ambulances on the hospital forecourt, week after week of record waiting times in A and E, moving medical goal posts, a delayed-discharge crisis, non-elective surgery paused and massive backlogs in potentially life-saving treatments, diagnostic tests and operations. There are so many people in pain.

Dr Sandesh Gulhane said that the SNP Government will blame Covid: true to form, Emma Roddick and Humza Yousaf blamed Covid.

The majority of speakers in today’s debate have exposed the fact that the underlying problems are long in the making. I ask Emma Roddick, who talked about fingers in ears, to listen to what has been said today. Paul Sweeney shared harrowing stories and Sarah Boyack talked about preventative care being stopped. We have heard so many stories of people who are frustrated, upset, forgotten or abandoned.

NHS front-line workers are telling us time and again that patient safety is at risk every day. Dedicated staff in our NHS are exhausted, disheartened and in disbelief. Not surprisingly, as Michael Marra has flagged, clinicians are thinking of chucking it in.

Alex Cole-Hamilton exposed the shocking story of a refugee who had to go back to war-torn Kiev for her medical treatment. However, John Mason had the temerity to accuse Jackie Baillie of exaggerating the crisis. He should pause on that and try telling it to the patient in Inverness who has been waiting 12 weeks for a GP telephone appointment, to the patient who has been waiting four years for a hip replacement, or to someone who has been waiting for life-changing cancer treatment. I ask Gillian Martin who it is that is “hiding behind the couch.”

Imagine how those patients felt on Monday, when the First Minister used a press conference on the crisis in our NHS to grandstand on the constitutional wrangling over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill on the same day that it emerged that one patient in my region, under NHS Grampian, had waited five years for a simple computed tomography—CT—scan.

As we have witnessed today, all the SNP does is sing from the same songbook. It deflects, distracts and—as we have heard again and again today—it blames the UK Government or, as David Torrance did, blames Labour for what it did more than 15 years ago. Really? Emma Roddick, who obviously does not understand employment legislation, has blamed the UK Government for the ball and chain on that legislation. Poppycock!

However, the question remains: how can the NHS come back from the brink after 15 years of mismanagement under the SNP Government? We have sensible policy proposals. The cabinet secretary asked earlier where our ideas are. He has run out of ideas; he is asking us for them. We have published ideas on crisis maximum waiting times, an electronic repeat prescription system, an app for live hospital waiting times; and “prehab”—[Interruption.]

The cabinet secretary, from a sedentary position, said, “Do it tomorrow”—I say to him that we have been waiting 15 years.

Our published proposals could make a real and defining difference, not just to how the NHS works and the pressures that it faces, but to patients’ experience of the system. If the cabinet secretary would like some ideas because he has run out of them, we will gladly meet him to share ours.

On the wider health system, we know that delayed discharge is a massive issue that prevents the flow of patients through the NHS from A and E on to other wards. More often than not, bed blocking is caused by a lack of social care packages at home or in the community, thanks in part to savage funding cuts to local authorities by the SNP Government.

However, instead of going full throttle to address the problem now, the SNP, in its wisdom, has decided to introduce legislation to set up a centralising national care service three years down the road with soaring cost implications for the public purse. The reality is that the 300 additional care home beds that the health secretary announced will not cut it when more than 1,700 people in hospital are clinically safe to leave but cannot do so.

On staffing, we know that the NHS workforce is massively understaffed with high vacancy rates. In fact, figures from the BMA suggest that consultant vacancies are more than double the Scottish Government’s official figures. There is still no proper workforce plan. The NHS will continue to haemorrhage staff if working conditions do not improve. That is not the exception; it is the norm, so we must urgently find ways to address the situation.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am finding it difficult to hear my colleague because of the conversations that are going on in the chamber.