Chamber and committees

Thanks. I have great admiration for NHS Lothian, too.

On the capital budget, you mentioned the Baird and ANCHOR project and the Parkhead health and social care centre in Glasgow. In the past, people have levelled at me the claim that there is not enough investment in building new GP infrastructure across the country. We might get one significant general practice funded in any Government’s term of office. Will there be more detail on that in the capital investment strategy? When will that strategy be published?

On the £10 billion, you have talked about refurbishing health infrastructure. Does that specifically include technology that is within hospital infrastructure? We are talking about capital, which should include theatre tables, new theatres and buying newer and better technology. I am aware of a specific experience in Glasgow where a hospital was unable to buy a new theatre table or certain pieces of equipment but it was able to lease them at £2,000 a time. That did not make much sense to me when I looked at the number of times that it was looking to rent versus the overall spend. I am trying to gauge what might be possible. I know that the level of capital that gets down to that granular level is not always significant enough to invest in what is needed for services.

That was just an example.

Earlier, I mentioned the Audit Scotland report that said that the Scottish Government needs to be more proactive in showing where and how the money has been spent in the budget in general. I am looking for support and commitment on that in relation to the importance that we are all giving to tackling drug-related deaths. Will the Scottish Government commit to publishing regular information that shows us the granular detail of how the money is being spent?

It is nice to see you today, Dr Phin. I have certainly had a lot of correspondence in my inbox about the secondary breast cancer audit, which Scottish patients are not contributing to, so I found that last question from my colleague pertinent.

I would like to ask about the key lessons that the four nations have learned from the pandemic. What policy divergence has there been, what has changed from what was done in the past and are the key lessons reflected in the framework? I am thinking in the context of the research that the Scottish Election Study published last week, which said that there was a poor understanding of the Scottish Government’s FACTS messaging compared with the “Hands, face, space” messaging that came from Public Health England. Given what we have heard about collaboration and consensus, do you think that we might be a bit more aligned in the future?

I represent the area that NHS Lothian covers and I was disappointed by the distance between its allocation and the NHS Scotland resource allocation committee recommendation—[Inaudible.]—£12 million.

Richard McCallum said that you are prioritising funding for health boards that are struggling to deal with the pandemic—to be fair, most boards are struggling with that to some degree. However, the greatest percentage increases are going to the national boards, not the local ones. The national boards include the NHS National Waiting Times Centre, which provides planned elective services, but the boards that are really struggling are the ones that have accident and emergency departments and deal with emergency admissions.

Why was the decision made to give more, proportionately, to Public Health Scotland, NHS National Services Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the waiting times centre, rather than other health boards?

We are just looking to get a sense of the consistency across the country. That is a theme that we hear about at all committee meetings, because of the variances that happen.

In the budget, there is a £1.2 million increase in direct Scottish Government spending on the alcohol and drug policy. How does that relate to, and come together with, the commitment to an additional £50 million per year in this session of the Parliament? I am just trying to get a sense of what the relationship is. Perhaps Richard McCallum would be better placed to answer that question.

As I said earlier, every party in the Parliament is—[Inaudible.]—tackling this and we really want to ensure that that additional funding is breaking through and getting down to where it needs to be. How will the additional spending be targeted to ensure that it is used effectively? How will we measure that impact? What are we looking at to ensure that the money that we invest has the desired impact and that it saves lives?

Thank you. That is all from me, convener.

I also thank my Lothian colleague Sarah Boyack for bringing this debate to the chamber.

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