Chamber and committees

Either witness can answer, depending on who is best placed to do so.

Does Scott Heald want to say anything? I am sorry, convener; I am taking over from you.

Mr Humpherson mentioned that some of the salient gaps in social care data were unmet needs, outcomes and demographics. How could we start capturing that data?

Thank you—that was very helpful. You mentioned that one of the challenges is with local collection, due to a lack of investment specifically with regard to local authorities. Is enough work being undertaken to understand those issues? Investment is a big issue, but what other hurdles and gaps might exist when it comes to data collection? What is it that creates the variance?

That brings me to my next question. How do front-line staff and those who are involved in data input decide what data should be produced and how? Obviously, you want that data to be entered accurately to start with, which would then stop lots of problems further down the line. Quality is key.

Ed Humpherson spoke about the rich picture, but we often have to translate so that individuals know and understand what data collection means for them. That applies to patients and to the people who input data—the healthcare professionals who are run ragged trying to keep 100 balls in the air and are then asked to type in some stuff.

What can you do for those two groups—patients and healthcare professionals? Can you give a specific example of how we can translate what data means for them?

Ed, you talked about the fact that we have been very agile and have moved at pace in respect of data during the pandemic. A specific example comes to mind of how that manifested itself. NHS Lothian was very reticent about accepting the Chrome browser on any of its systems, which was a massive hurdle to the utilisation by patients of the NHS “attend anywhere” platform. How did you get around that during the pandemic? I should probably state that, as a councillor on the City of Edinburgh Council, I had a motion at the integration joint board to get the health board to move over to that system. What was the final trigger that led to the board moving over in that way?

This question might be most appropriate for Steve Baguley, but others can contribute. We are seeing a significant issue with delayed discharge, a lot of which is down to care-at-home capacity not being there. We are now also seeing what is being called interim discharge. How could and should home and remote health-monitoring technologies be further developed? Can you see them helping—in the short term, medium term and long term—with the crisis in the discharge process?

November is pancreatic cancer awareness month and tomorrow is pancreatic cancer awareness day. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and to show my support. It is a fantastic chance for the pancreatic cancer community to come together to raise awareness and funds, and to remember loved ones who have, sadly, died of the disease.

Raising awareness is key, because two thirds of people in the United Kingdom cannot name a single symptom of pancreatic cancer. Even more worrying is that around half of pancreatic cancer patients will visit their general practitioner three times because of their symptoms before being referred to hospital.

Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest common cancer in Scotland. Only one in four of those who are diagnosed with it survives beyond a year. In the UK, 10,000 people are diagnosed each year, yet pancreatic cancer receives only 2 per cent of national cancer research funding, despite being the fifth-highest killing cancer.

Scotland is leading the way in pancreatic cancer innovation. For example, Precision-Panc is a major research programme that is being developed and run at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow. It collaborates with world leaders from the University of Glasgow, the Cancer Research UK institutes at the Beatson and in Cambridge and Manchester, the Institute of Cancer Research in London, the University of Oxford and the national health service.

My life before Parliament allowed me unparalleled access to the surgical treatment of this deadly cancer. I worked alongside upper gastrointestinal surgical consultants from across the country, including Ross Carter who was mentioned by Clare Adamson. I know from experience the complex nature of the surgery that is needed to treat pancreatic cancer. The specialist surgeons are dedicated and are committed to adopting innovation to reduce surgical operating time even by the slightest margins, and to seeking new ways to reduce surgical risk and post-operative complications. They work collaboratively across the NHS to do all that they can to increase their patients’ survival.

However, the outcomes following the potentially lifesaving surgery are still a long way from being acceptable. If a patient is diagnosed in time for surgery, the?five-year survival rate increases to around 30 per cent. We must diagnose people far earlier, so that they will live longer and experience better quality of life.

For anyone who receives a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, as my friend’s mother has, life stops—albeit briefly—and family and friends must respond quickly. My friend Mike had to return from Australia: the only saving grace was that he was able to return to see his mum, which would not have been possible a year ago.

A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer affects every aspect of life and brings emotional, financial, and practical problems that can last long after treatment ends. If anyone who is in that position is listening to the debate today, I take the opportunity to direct them to the practical, emotional and financial support that is offered by Macmillan Cancer Support. Anyone can, as a first step, call their telephone helpline on 0808 808 00 00, or go to the Macmillan website for help.

I thank Clare Adamson for bringing the debate to Parliament, and for helping to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer.

Our NHS is under pressure like never before, and it is increasingly clear that the SNP has no positive ideas for how to turn things around. All that it offers the people of Scotland, and our hard-working NHS staff, is more excuses.

The SNP does not want to admit that removing the cap on funded places for key NHS roles is the right thing to do. The current crisis in the Scottish NHS is, in large part, down to the lack of GPs, doctors, nurses and paramedics—and the list goes on. The problem stems from Nicola Sturgeon’s decision a decade ago, when she was health secretary, to cut the number of funded training places at Scottish universities. When this Scottish Parliament first sat in 1999, more than 60 per cent of medical places were filled by Scotland-domiciled students. That figure has dropped by around 10 per cent as a result of the decisions that have been taken in this chamber.

We cannot continue with a policy that is holding back our NHS. After having 14 years in which to sort things out, the SNP has failed. We know that the applicants are still there and are still applying, that Scottish universities are filling their funding places and could fill more with suitably qualified young Scottish people, and that the widening access places could and would be maintained. It would, therefore, surely be worth giving that suggestion more than a cursory glance.

As Paul McLennan outlined, there is a wide and diverse range of new training places, which conflicts with the cabinet secretary’s statement about the threat of a lack of training places for graduates of our medical and nursing schools. Would it not be a more desirable problem to have too many graduates, rather than the workforce crisis that we currently face? Surely our universities are better placed to meet and plan for the longer-term workforce needs.

At the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee earlier this month, the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine stated that the training scheme had nationally determined numbers and was six years out of date, and that one in five consultants was considering early retirement and one in two was seeking to reduce their hours. He went on to say that, right now, we have one A and E consultant for every 6,500 patients, when it should be one for every 4,000; we are 130 whole-time-equivalent emergency medicine consultants short; and GPs are already facing unprecedented demand. Andrew Buist from the BMA translated those figures to say that, right now, there are 250 whole-time-equivalent GP vacancies in Scotland.

We cannot keep on letting the problems get worse. The SNP’s incremental increases in funding for places simply do not meet the scale of the challenge that we face. I urge members on all sides of the chamber to ask themselves whether we are doing enough to protect and future proof our NHS.

We cannot keep on doing the same thing and hoping that the staffing shortages will sort themselves out. We need a bold new approach. Is the SNP Government ready to admit that it has got it wrong? For a nationalist Government, which claims to care about Scotland, to be overseeing a system in which we are turning away bright young Scots who want to be the nurses, doctors and paramedics of the future is nothing short of shameful. By keeping the funding cap in place, we are selling Scotland short. We have the talent—let us do something about it and support the motion from Dr Gulhane today.