Chamber and committees

Heather Anderson has a follow-up question.

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session with Maree Todd, Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs, on the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 Remedial Order 2026.

The Minister is joined by the following Scottish Government officials: Joanne Farrow, deputy director, complex care and rights division; and Ivan Boemer, solicitor, mental health, adults with incapacity, palliative care and digital health branch, legal directorate—quite a few titles there.

I welcome you all to the meeting and invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

I will come to Alison Payne in a minute. We have been talking about how we can take money off the NHS to do preventative work. I am asking about work of the kind that the Germans have done to establish how much it costs for many people to be inactive. Putting aside the social care costs, the loss of working people for decades is a major cost to the economy. Work has been done on that in relation to ME. It was done some years ago, and I cannot remember the figures offhand. I would have thought that Audit Scotland might find it of interest to look at that work. I was interested to learn that the Germans have identified the issue as a problem. They have identified that the impact is quite large—it is in the billions. That was also the case in the UK, a number of years ago, for ME, and that was before another 70,000 people were diagnosed.

If people were to look into such conditions, we might find a way of dealing with them. I am not saying that they are curable at the moment, but there is no doubt that they can be made worse by bad advice. Until somebody focuses on the issue, the people affected will not get the help that they deserve. That is just a thought. I would be happy to hear back from people on that.

I will pick up on a couple of things that have come up, and perhaps you can bring them back in. We have heard a lot about bed blocking and issues around shifting things to social care, but we have not heard a lot about healthy years lived. We have heard a lot about inequality, but, across the board in Scotland, the average figure for healthy years lived has decreased. I think that the figure that I saw was that it had decreased by five years, from 64 to 59, for one of the cohorts. If that is wrong, I am happy to be corrected.

Interestingly, we had a meeting with a delegation from the Bavarian health committee yesterday. We met around a table like this, and I asked them whether healthy years lived was an issue for them. To be honest, they looked like they did not really understand the question, and then they said, “No. Our population lives longer healthier. It is just that they are living until later life.” They have the same problem with care for the elderly, but they did not recognise that issue.

What evidence is there about other countries and other parts of the United Kingdom? Does anybody have any suggestions as to why they might be different?

09:45

We all agree that evidence is essential if we are making major changes. Joe Long wants to come in on that point.

That is interesting. Can you tell us who is doing that research? Where could we look that up? Could you sent it on to us?

I agree that there are also soft drinks available, but there are always soft drinks available. It is an interesting subject and one that we will come back to.

We are nearly out of time, but we have one more thing to address, which is about whether there is learning to be gained from models elsewhere. Joe Long is going to ask about that.

Your point about the early years is interesting, and I thank you for it. What figures do you have for how that money is going to be transferred, given the constraints that the country is operating under? Many people talk about it as if, within five years or at most 10 years, we will see that change and improvement in the population if we stop spending money in one area and find a way to spend it in another area. That is what I was asking about: why is Scotland facing the situation that I mentioned, and what needs to be done about it? Is there evidence that we could use to consider that issue? You have pointed us to a lot of documents, but has the specific question of how we get money into the early years been addressed? This might not be in your bailiwick, but is there evidence that early nursery care or childcare is better than having parents look after their own children? Is there a way to support parents?

That might be too wide a question for you, but I am just thinking about those issues.

Good morning, and welcome to the seventh meeting in this session of the Health, Care and Sport Committee. We have no apologies. Today, we will start our pre-budget scrutiny for 2027-28. The committee has agreed to examine how the Scottish Government is preparing for future challenges in the health, care and sport sectors. Today’s evidence session will focus on health, although there will be some crossover. We have up to two hours for discussion.

I am pleased to welcome Richard Robinson, senior manager at Audit Scotland; Professor Linda Bauld, professor of public health and co-head of population health sciences at the University of Edinburgh; Robbie Pearson, chief executive of Health Improvement Scotland; and Alison Payne, research director at Enlighten. Thank you all very much for coming. I thank those who submitted concise summaries—it is much appreciated. We have further background information, and we have taken evidence over several weeks. We want to take a fairly general look at the issue, but we will sometimes direct questions specifically. However, others are welcome to chip in—just flag up that you wish to speak in the usual way.

We have read the papers so, rather than ask you to give an introduction, we will kick off with issues that have come to the fore for us. Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill will start.

Okay. I will take that on board.