Chamber and committees

We do not accept it. We do not see it as acceptable in any way, nor are we resigned to it. That is why Healthcare Improvement Scotland went in and undertook that investigation. It is why the leadership of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said today that those issues will be addressed “at pace” and with urgency.

Let me use this platform to make it abundantly clear to every health board in the country that the culture that is referred to by Healthcare Improvement Scotland is completely and utterly unacceptable. In general, Scotland has a formidable record on improvements to patient safety. Indeed, our patient safety programme is very highly regarded internationally because of the work that it involves. However, the quality and strength of that patient safety programme will be undermined if there is not a culture of accepting the need to tackle the behaviour that the Healthcare Improvement Scotland report highlights. Mr Sarwar has my assurance that, in my communication and that of the health secretary to health boards, we are making it clear that the contents of that report are unacceptable and must be addressed by health boards around the country.

I will not repeat all the details that I gave in my earlier answer to Mr Fraser, but I acknowledge the seriousness of the point that Mr McMillan has put to me on behalf of his constituent.

The Government’s budget includes substantial new investment in health boards. In my earlier answer, I indicated that we are making progress on the achievement of the CAMHS performance standard. The combination of early intervention and enabling the service to focus on those children with the most acute needs will help us to address the substance of the point that Mr McMillan has put to me. I would be happy for the health secretary to address the specific points that he has raised on behalf of his constituent.

I am grateful to Mr Sweeney for his kind remarks about Christina McKelvie. He is absolutely right to say that she went out of her way to help members on all questions.

I am concerned to hear the news about the Notre Dame Centre. I have asked Government officials to liaise with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Glasgow City Council, which are the partners in the IJB, to address the concerns and to provide the reassurance that we all need to hear, that the demand on the services that would have been provided by Notre Dame is able to be met in the future, because it is vital that individuals who require those services are able to access them.

I very much support the principle of water being owned in the public sector and managed in the interests of the public sector. That is exactly what Scottish Water does, and that is certainly different from water management systems in England, which are privatised and are of poorer quality, less resilient and more expensive and do not operate as firmly in the public interest as Scottish Water does. The model that Mercedes Villalba talks about is the model that I believe is in place in Scotland.

Obviously, Scottish Water will procure external construction support to enhance water infrastructure, and I think that we would all accept that that is necessary to ensure value for money for the public purse. Scottish Water invested more than £1 billion in 2023-24 and plans to invest a total of £6 billion across the current regulatory period of 2021 to 2027.

I cannot overstate the importance of that, given the fact that we are experiencing—as was made clear by a question last week—wildfires in Scotland in March. I leave that sentence for Parliament to think about. We are having wildfires in Scotland in March when the weather should be significantly wetter, so we now have to cope with such circumstances. That is an illustration of the challenges that we are facing, and I very much endorse the approach that Mercedes Villalba set out.

Those concerns have been raised with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Glasgow City Council, but I would be happy to meet Mr Doris to discuss those questions. I understand his long-standing connection with the Notre Dame Centre and his appreciation of its work, and I would be happy to meet him and the centre to hear the concerns that he has raised in Parliament today.

I stress the importance of there being effective dialogue between Police Scotland and local communities. That dialogue is one channel through which we will establish an understanding and awareness of some of the challenges that exist in local areas. I hope that Mr Mundell and I can agree that such understanding and awareness does not necessarily always have to be through attendance at community council meetings, because there are a lot of community councils across Scotland.

However, there has to be good, engaged local dialogue, which I know will take place with the local authority in Dumfries and Galloway. Such dialogue must be satisfactory in ensuring that Police Scotland is aware of the issues in and aspirations of local areas. I will seek the view of the chief constable on that point and will write to Mr Mundell with further details.

I do not accept that characterisation of the Government’s approach. If that were the case, there would not be an inquiry into Scottish hospitals’ performance, and there would not have been a Healthcare Improvement Scotland analysis of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Those are two examples of the Government being prepared to honestly confront acute difficulties in our health service. I would expect that to be the case, and I give Mr Sarwar and the Parliament the assurance that that will always be the case under my leadership. We will confront difficulties openly and honestly to improve the experience of patients.

Mr Sarwar said that there has been a normalisation of corridor care. Let me make it clear to the Parliament that I do not accept that—rather, I will not tolerate it. I will not normalise corridor care. I do not think that it is a good idea to have corridor care. As I referred to in my final answer to Russell Findlay, we have to address issues such as improving the flow of patients through hospitals so that we avoid corridor care.

Mr Sarwar also said that patients are routinely denied appropriate and timely care. I accept that there will be failings in the health service, but I do not think that that is a fair characterisation of the NHS. Many people experience formidably high-quality, professional and loving care from the NHS, and I want to make sure that that is everybody’s experience.

The Government is concerned by a number of details in the UK Government’s spring statement, not least of which is the assessment, which has emerged from the Department for Work and Pensions, that the measures contained in the spring statement are likely to drive 250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty. Those cuts to welfare will have a direct impact on Scotland’s budget. The Fraser of Allander Institute has estimated that it will see a block grant adjustment to our budget that removes £455 million in 2039-40.

The Scottish Government has legislated—for example, when we have acquired new powers on social security—to implement a social security system that is based on dignity and respect. That will always be the approach that we take. We legislated for that in order to ensure that such an approach would be taken in the future.

Mr Gibson has my assurance that those values will always be at the heart of the decisions that the Scottish Government takes. I want to ensure that we put our focus into the necessary work to eradicate child poverty. That will become more challenging as a consequence of the spring statement, because, as we found with the previous Conservative Government, we are once again swimming against a tide of rising poverty levels as a consequence of UK Government decision making. Our data, which was released today, demonstrates that we are seeing reducing levels of child poverty in Scotland, but that pattern will be challenged by the prevailing decisions that have been taken in the spring statement.

The report rightly identifies economic problems that the United Kingdom continues to face. The UK is among the least generous on welfare across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UK’s regional income growth is among the slowest in Europe and its weak productivity growth is costing workers thousands per year.

Those are direct results of the welfare and economic choices of the current and previous United Kingdom Governments, which include the decision not to remove the two-child limit on universal credit. The report finds that removing that would be the most cost-effective way to reduce poverty.

Despite the hindrances that those UK Government decisions place on our ability to grow the Scottish economy and to eradicate child poverty, gross domestic product per person in Scotland has grown by 10.3 per cent since 2007, compared with 6 per cent growth in the United Kingdom as a whole.