Chamber and committees

The question was about detail, not data.

You spoke about displacement. A report from the Institute of Economic Affairs has suggested that minimum unit pricing is responsible for a certain amount of displacement to higher-value categories. It says that the policy has resulted in an extra 8.2 million litres of pure alcohol being sold in the 50p to 64p per unit category and a further 0.4 million litres being sold above 70p per unit. What investigatory work has the Scottish Government commissioned into that level of displacement, and do you recognise the argument that the policy has pushed consumers towards the mid-range rather than away from alcohol in its entirety?

To follow that up, we have heard that alcohol-related deaths have increased by 10 per cent since 2020. The minister said that the most recent year with data on ABIs is 2019-20, when the level was 23 per cent higher than the expected standard. However, between 2013 and 2020, the number of ABIs declined by 28 per cent. We heard that you are reviewing evidence, but what can we do immediately and in the short term to really produce an uptick in ABIs, which are critical—particularly in deprived areas?

Thank you for drawing attention to the inequality that women face in accessing services. If 51 per cent of the population are struggling to access services that are being developed, that should probably be the number 1 priority, given the make-up of this committee.

The number of alcohol-related hospitalisations and deaths is eight times higher in the most deprived areas of Scotland. We should all be ashamed about that. We really need to figure out how to target and support those communities. Support mechanisms for alcohol misuse are often far more sparse in deprived areas than they are in the most affluent areas. What can we do to narrow the gap and target deprived communities?

My question follows on from Gillian Mackay’s point. It has been revealed that one of the impacts of minimum unit pricing is that Scottish consumers have contributed £270 million more than was projected, in terms of their spending on alcohol. What consideration has the Scottish Government given to the possibility of ring-fencing proceeds from alcohol to be spent on rehabilitation and treatment? The current model feeds the revenue straight back into the supply chain.

I thought that one of the intentions was to reduce the amount of alcohol that people are drinking. What I am suggesting is that that has not happened; they are still drinking the same, if not more, alcohol, but they are buying it in a higher-value category.

I have only one question. In your report, you note that there is no overarching strategy for tackling health inequalities in Scotland, despite the endemic nature of the persistent and acute inequalities that exist. We have just heard about some of the activity that you are undertaking in that regard, such as on weaving the strands of spending across different portfolios. What conversations have you had with the Scottish Government on the need to establish urgently an overarching strategy on health inequalities that would act almost as a linchpin as we recover from the pandemic?

It might be best if Leigh Johnston answers this question, because it is about the clinical prioritisation framework.

Leigh, you mentioned that you were not getting a clear sense of whether patients were correctly prioritised. Indeed, while patients wait—sometimes for up to two years—their symptoms can get significantly worse, so the question is whether they are progressing to the higher priority level. Do you get a sense that, when people lose hope that they might ever get seen, they take themselves off the NHS list? Are we measuring the people who go off to private providers to have their treatments?

Welcome to the meeting, Mr Boyle. It is nice to see you face to face.

It has been eight months since the Scottish Government published its NHS recovery plan. What is your assessment of the progress, if any, that has been made since then? As you have rightly stated and as we all understand, there is no quick fix, but we now have an opportunity to reform the system instead of recovering to pre-pandemic levels. However, given that the statistics that are coming out of the NHS with regard to accident and emergency, cancer, delayed discharges and diagnostics are all bleak, do you think that the Government’s plan is working?

Thank you for those responses.

Mr Boyle, you mentioned earlier that the NHS has consistently failed to deliver on all of its historic staffing ambitions, and you stated that the new recovery plan is predicated on recruitment and retention of staff, so staffing is obviously key. I might not have got the wording exactly right, but I hope that that gives the gist of it. Do you get the sense that what the recovery plan sets out is the reform that is required and is not just tackling the long-standing staff issues that we have? Bringing about the reform that is needed is different to tackling our recruitment challenges.