We have heard a number of accounts today of how remote and rural communities suffer from a lack of attention from the Scottish Government when it comes to health and other services. Ayrshire, in my region, is no different. Doctors at Girvan community hospital recently came to the conclusion that they were unable to continue the valuable overnight service for patients in the area. They cited “sustainability and workforce issues” as the reason for the withdrawal; in other words, a lack of money, a lack of resources, a lack of trained GPs coming through the system and a lack of focus by the Scottish Government on the needs of rural Scotland. It is the first time that local medics will not staff the facility. Until now, the 20-bed unit has been nimble and quick in its response to patient needs. The fear now, with doctors coming from further afield to deal with urgent cases, is that a quick and reliable response will be placed in jeopardy.

Those in charge have maintained that patient care will remain a priority. Some rejigging of the region-wide urgent care service means that there will at least be some help at hand. However, that downgrade is even more concerning to locals, given the availability of ambulances in the rural Carrick area, which has already been highlighted. To add to their concern, there are constant road closures and diversions on the main route—the A77—to hospitals. I have been assured that ambulances are given priority access through road closures, but anyone travelling by themselves to hospital can be faced with substantial diversions that make their journey take hours.

However, that is not the only example of how rural healthcare in Ayrshire is suffering under the SNP. In addition to the lack of ambulances in the rural Carrick area, there have been service changes for patients of clinics in Ayr and Kilmarnock. Flagship schemes to attract more GPs to work in areas such as rural Ayrshire have fallen flat, and people find registering with a dentist challenging. No consideration is given to patient transport when local clinics are moved to centralised locations.

Health services in rural Scotland face so many unique challenges because of the geographical hand that they have been dealt. However, often, the nationwide failings of the health service are felt even more acutely in smaller countryside locations. No one pretends that there will be an easy fix. However, the SNP has been in power in Scotland for coming up for 18 years. With every year that goes by, its attempts to blame everyone else become less and less credible. As members’ contributions to the debate have shown, people often feel such failings more painfully the further away from the big cities that they live.

I was contacted this week by a constituent in Prestwick. He attended an appointment with his general practitioner on 30 December with a lesion on his back suspected to be skin cancer. His GP made an urgent referral to dermatology. Having twice been diagnosed with skin cancer, he knows that it demands urgent attention. Despite that, he was told that it would be

“over 12 months before he could be seen at hospital, despite the referral being marked urgent.”

For someone with suspected cancer, 12 months could be the difference between life and death. Does the First Minister think that that is an acceptable timescale? What action will the Scottish Government take to ensure that urgent cancer referrals such as that are seen within appropriate and safe timeframes?

That is good.

I want to ask about the referral categories. Can you tell me more about the A, B and C categories of complaint, and how you work out which category a complaint goes in? Earlier, you mentioned the change in the law on corroboration from the Lord Advocate. I have the impression that, in a charge bar, there may be a charge bar officer and another officer, and somebody might say, “I’ve got a complaint: I was handled too roughly there”. There is no evidence of it, but because the other officer can now be used as corroboration, it becomes a complaint, even if there is no evidence of any harm being caused, or that anything has happened. How would that be categorised?

It is still in the early stages, then.

So, you feel that the police engage with you and are making progress.

I think that a lot of my points have now been covered. I am looking at the recommendations in the report. Upon completion of investigations by the PIRC, the organisation regularly issues recommendations to the police to encourage change and improvements to practices. In 2023-24, the PIRC issued 265 recommendations and 92 individual or organisational learning points. Do you monitor the implementation of the recommendations and follow up non-compliance? If so, can you tell us more about how you do that?

I come to my final question. We have heard that body-worn video, when it comes in, will be a game changer. I would expect that the police already have policies and procedures in place for its use, but I am not quite sure what those are or when body-worn video would or would not be operational. In the circumstances that I described, if it was operational, you would already have your evidence, as you could see if anything had happened. Have you been sighted on what the new policies and procedures are and whether they are being rolled out just now?

I have nothing to add. I press the amendment.

Amendment 7 agreed to.

If an individual who has made a complaint against the police is unhappy with the way in which the complaint has been handled, they can request that the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner conduct a complaint handling review. The bill expands that aspect of the complaints procedure to allow the commissioner to conduct a complaint handling review if they think that it is appropriate, instead of having to rely on the complainer to bring the matter to them.

At stage 2, I successfully amended section 11 to require the PIRC to notify the relevant complainer if they decide to conduct a complaint handling review, and I am glad that the Scottish Government agreed with me on that issue. However, my stage 2 amendment focused only on the new power that will be granted to the PIRC to conduct a complaint handling review of their own volition. It was my understanding that, if the PIRC decided to review a case at the request of a complainer, the complainer would be notified, but that is not the case, largely due to a defect in existing legislation.

Amendment 8 attempts to fix that situation by ensuring that the complainer is notified if a complaint handling review takes place, regardless of whether the complainer or the PIRC requested it. The amendment will ensure that, in every case, the complainer will be made aware that the PIRC will be reviewing the handling of their complaint, thereby keeping them informed and allowing them to engage with the review. It is a very simple amendment that I hope the Parliament will support.

I move amendment 8.

One of the provisions in the bill is the creation of a statutory obligation on the chief constable to prepare a code of ethics for the police service, such as the code that currently exists on a non-statutory basis. The bill requires that the chief constable consults with a variety of stakeholders when preparing the code of ethics.

However, in the drafted list of stakeholders that the chief constable must consult, I noticed that one very important group of people is missing: individuals who have made complaints to the police in the past. These are the very people who have experienced the process that the bill is trying to improve; that is the very purpose of this piece of proposed legislation. The Parliament knows the importance of including people with lived experience in policy discussions, and the new code of ethics is no different.

My amendment 4 is simple. It requires that the chief constable consult with those who represent the interests of individuals who have lived experience of going through the existing complaints procedure. The amendment is drafted to ensure that those important voices are heard without potentially delaying the preparation of the code by requiring consultation with too wide a pool of people. It would achieve a balanced outcome between thorough consultation and practical considerations, and I encourage the Parliament to vote for it.

Katy Clark’s amendments 10 and 11 would both make minor yet sensible changes to the bill. On amendment 11, it would be extremely helpful in the future to have a document that sums up any changes to the code of ethics and that also explains why any proposed changes were not implemented. The Conservatives will support those amendments.