Chamber and committees

In previous evidence sessions, some of the Government officials who work with the digital platform stated that there is a disconnect between Scotland and other parts of the UK on the level of investment in people who develop such technology. Do you have plans to upscale that and have more people working behind the scenes to develop the digital platform?

We spoke earlier about some of the changes to services, including to the telephony system for GPs. The adoption of digital health and care information has accelerated through the pandemic, but has the quality and quantity of resources kept up with demand? Are the relevant websites easy to navigate, including for those who have only a limited digital understanding?

I am trying to figure out whether we are keeping up with the technological development that is needed. I am thinking back to an article that was in The Scotsman the other week about an app on which people can access test results, make appointments and so on. That is not available to us in Scotland, but NHS England has such an app available now. I wonder why there is not a bit more cross-border sharing of that technological development.

You say that you hope that people are having a good experience, cabinet secretary, but I note that in its response to our consultation Healthcare Improvement Scotland suggested that an increase in social prescribing was dependent on continuous monitoring. Are you aware of the monitoring that is being undertaken? If so, how extensive is it?

Cabinet secretary, one third of the respondents to the committee’s public survey said that their experience of social prescribing was either bad or very bad, with some saying that they would be insulted to be directed to those services. A common theme among respondents was that they could have found the same or better information elsewhere. You get a bit of a sense of frustration in those responses. What needs to happen to ensure that these pathways are perceived as—and, indeed, are—more valuable and credible to the public?

You mentioned self-referral, rather than everyone having to phone the GP practice and speak to the receptionist.

Thanks, convener. I hope that you can see me this time. My signal is a bit more stable now.

The Royal College of Nursing has rightly pointed out that people with poor health literacy are less able to identify or label what is wrong with them, and are therefore less able to identify and self-refer to the various alternative pathways that we hear so much about. What is your assessment of the risk that an increase in use of digital pathways will increase the health inequalities that many people face?

Adam Stachura mentioned the scale of the issue, given the number of over-60s who do not have a device, and Chris Mackie said that digital should always be a meaningful choice, so maybe they are interested in responding.

In 2019, when the Health and Sport Committee was taking evidence—I was not on the committee at the time—it heard about a number of barriers that healthcare practitioners faced in relation to their use of social prescribing. Those barriers included a lack of strong evidence on its long-term effectiveness, time constraints, lack of awareness and quality assurance, or how they could be assured of consistency in quality. Linked to that is the issue of continuous monitoring of whether services are still available in the community, because we know how transient some organisations can be due to lack of funding. Has any progress been made in tackling those barriers in the past three years?

You alluded to link workers reporting that there is a lack of understanding of their role—[Inaudible.]—which impedes progress on social prescribing. You also mentioned some successes. What progress has been made on raising awareness of the role and on making it a much more viable route for care and support?

The point of contact still seems to be the GP practice, and we hear a lot of frustration from people who are struggling to get past the receptionist. It seems that everyone is still having to come in to the GP practice to get a referral. It was interesting to hear from Clare Cook earlier about some of the self-referral pathways. What are we doing to address the lack of understanding?

In 2019, the Health and Sport Committee held an inquiry that highlighted a number of barriers relating to health practitioners’ use of—[Inaudible.]—in primary care. Such barriers included a lack of strong evidence on its long-term effectiveness, time constraints, lack of awareness and quality assurance. Has any progress been made in tackling those barriers over the past three years? Perhaps Alison Leitch can start on that.

In 2017, the Scottish Government published a “Making it Easier: A Health Literacy Action Plan for Scotland 2017-2025”. In the five years since, what progress has been made in improving health literacy? What sense do you get that there has been improvement? Do you think that the plan has contributed to progress? I am not sure whether Chris Mackie is able to answer.