Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the chance to speak in this much-delayed debate. In the motion that is in front of us today there is absolutely nothing that could not have been presented to Parliament before 5 May.

The SNP Government is failing to treat long Covid with the seriousness that it deserves. SNP ministers must urgently get on top of long Covid now, before it spirals out of control and has serious knock-on consequences for other services in our NHS.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that 151,000 Scots are suffering with long Covid; that number is rising. Additionally, 64,000 Scots have been experiencing long Covid symptoms for more than a year, which is more than double the number who were suffering just six months ago. Also, 36,000 Scots are reporting that long Covid is having a significant impact on their daily activities. Mr Cole-Hamilton spoke about how debilitating it is and how it is ruining people’s livelihoods. Huge numbers of people are suffering while the SNP fails to act.

The figures include constituents of mine; we have heard many constituents’ stories. One constituent has contacted me with a heart-breaking story. She is a nurse in Edinburgh and is suffering from long Covid. Her story certainly breaks my heart. After contracting Covid in 2020, she was signed off work in August that year and was not able to return until February 2021. When she returned to work, she managed to maintain herself at work until August 2021, when she then went off sick again with extreme fatigue, constant headaches and continuous dizziness. Her job is now at risk because she is still not well enough to return to work, despite the fact that she is still waiting for further assessment and referral. There is no primary care pathway for GPs to access services.

My constituent feels very strongly that the system does not work. As I have said, there is no clear pathway to referrals for services. A network of long Covid clinics would ensure that we would reach everyone who is struggling with the debilitating condition. Patients cannot wait for years for action. Too many of the people who have fought Covid are still suffering with the consequences months after they caught the virus. Without proper long Covid clinics, many of those people will continue to be missed.

Aside from clinics, we need the Government to ensure that there are better guidelines for support across health and social care. My constituent said:

“Long Covid is not going away. I do not appear to be getting better and I am not getting any kind of meaningful treatment. I do not appreciate being left to rot, having done my duty, and attended work during the pandemic to support my frontline colleagues in my nursing role. Nor do I appreciate being written off due to others’ ideas of disability and capability.”

It was quite humbling to get that email.

Physical health conditions can have negative impacts on a person’s mental health. Financial stress is also associated with poorer mental health, and long Covid is documented as affecting people’s ability to work. Stress, fear, and the trauma of having long Covid, and uncertainty about the future are also noted to have exacerbated poor mental health.

Everyone knows that people who suffer from long Covid are likely to experience mental health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Recent research into long Covid mirrors that finding; it has determined that there is a high probability that suicide rates will increase among people who are experiencing long Covid. That is a result of the psychiatric, neurological and physical symptoms of the virus. However, suicide is not even mentioned in Scotland’s long Covid service document.

The Scottish Government’s motion refers to the need to develop models of care that will

“benefit the management of other long-term and complex conditions”.

Therefore, as John Mason did, I want to make reference to the similarities between long Covid and ME and how those conditions have been recognised.

Attitudes to ME have been changing with the emergence of long Covid. The two conditions have many similarities. Like long Covid, ME is a post-viral disease, and it has many identical fluctuating symptoms. The hallmark symptom of ME is post-exertional malaise, which is a worsening of symptoms that can follow minimal cognitive, physical, emotional or social activity. Many people are extremely concerned that doctors who treat long Covid patients are not aware of the dangers of exercise for patients who are suffering from fatigue.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline on ME, which was published in October 2021, has not yet been implemented in Scotland, which has led to a void in guidance on treatment of ME. Long Covid patients who have ME face the prospect of being treated by doctors who have little knowledge or understanding of ME and who, at worst, will recommend treatment that will harm them.

In Jan 2019, in response to #MEAction Scotland’s petition, Jeane Freeman told the Public Petitions Committee:

“We should not wait until we have a better research base and greater clarity on what treatment options might be appropriate. People are living with ME right now, so we need to look at the work that needs to be done to increase awareness and understanding of the condition”.—[Official Report, Public Petitions Committee, 24 January 2019; c 35.]

That statement was made more than three years ago, yet nothing has changed for people with ME in Scotland. We cannot allow there to be the same inaction on long Covid. As Jackie Baillie said today,

“we now see baby steps being taken. Snails move at a faster pace.”

My colleague Dr Gulhane made it clear that patients with long Covid want the Parliament to take concrete action. We urgently need a clear strategy for tackling the disease, and funding must be ring fenced for treatment of long Covid patients. NHS staff are going above and beyond, but they cannot provide the service that patients deserve because the SNP Government has failed to resource them properly. Although we welcome the £10 million of funding, it is spread over three financial years and, as Jackie Baillie said, will amount to only £33 per person.

Certainly.

There is still an impression that Labour supports a national care service. With that, I will carry on with my speech.

The message from service users and people with lived experience is clear: it is local services that they want; it is local services that can adapt to the diverse nature of their needs; and it is local services and third party organisations that we should focus on and invest in. They are delivering the services that people want.

Labour supports the plans for a national care service, despite organisations such as the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Fraser of Allander Institute voicing serious concerns.

The SNP’s plans amount to a blatant power grab. Costly new legislation and centralised structures are not the solution. That is why the Scottish Conservatives would offer a local care service, which would protect individual choice and individual control.

Not at the moment.

Our local care service would include a local care guarantee, which would ensure that support was delivered as close as possible to the people who need it, especially in rural and island communities.

We want positive action to be taken. We would give further powers to the Care Inspectorate to drive up standards of local care. A wider scope of powers should be considered to promote sustained improvement of poor care services over time.

We would build minimum pay and terms and conditions into commissioning and procurement, as the Feeley review recommended. We would make care a rewarding career path and would ensure that commissioned services rewarded length of service and positive job performance with pay progression and development of the skills base and responsibilities.

We would institute rigorous workforce planning for the future. A robust, transparent data set to underpin that work can be developed without a national care service. Ours would be not merely a workforce plan that was affordable, but one that was based on forward capacity planning carried out by people who deliver the services and those who access them.

We would improve the carers allowance and extend payments. We would do that by introducing a taper rate so that carers do not lose 100 per cent of their allowance if they earn £1 more than the £128 per week limit. We would also extend payments of carers allowance to up to six months after bereavement and would allow carers in full-time education to continue to receive the carers allowance.

We would amend the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 to give unpaid carers automatic rights to support for breaks from caring. Right now, only around 3 per cent of unpaid carers receive statutory support for breaks from caring.

The UK Government’s health and social care levy delivers a clear union dividend. In 2024-25, Scotland will benefit from an additional £1.1 billion because of the health and social care levy. We are calling on the Scottish Government to guarantee that that fund will be passed on and ring fenced in full.

Although we welcome the UK Government’s cut in fuel duty, we consider that the mileage reimbursement for care workers should be temporarily increased by 5p per mile, based on the cost of fuel, as has been agreed for NHS workers. Most importantly, it should be funded by the Scottish Government.

Yes, I will.

There is a crisis in our social care service. Staff are overwhelmed, having gone above and beyond during the pandemic, but they have not been given the leadership or supportive environment that they need from this SNP Government. Quite frankly, there has been no leadership at all.

It is not just the SNP that is at fault. Instead of working to address the crisis in social care, Scottish Labour is working with and focused on the centralisation of care services alongside the SNP. That will hollow out local councils even further.

I think that the minister is manufacturing a false grievance. The public want us to work together.

The UK Government has stepped up during the cost of living crisis, by providing a £22 billion package of support, which includes a cut in fuel duty and an increase in the national insurance thresholds. Instead of pressing ahead with a bureaucratic overhaul of services, the SNP should bring forward reforms now.

I have a suggestion that the minister might find will focus the Government’s mind. Will she make a commitment that, for every day that there is rail strike disruption, the ministerial limos will remain parked, in solidarity with ScotRail passengers—yes or no?

I have one more question on the workforce. Is that okay? It is a very quick one.

I am leading on the next theme, on commissioning, so I will not drill down any further, but I have one more question—