Chamber and committees

I want to explore amendment 33, which the cabinet secretary has commented on. I accept that she is doing a consultation. We have already debated my amendments on giving landlords the power to increase rent if they have incurred significant costs. I think that amendment 33 is similar to, although not the same as, those amendments. I do not want to put words into Mr Rennie’s mouth, but I think that his point is that, if a property has been improved between tenancies and has been made a lot nicer than it was—let us say that the landlord has stripped out the kitchen and bathroom and put in new ones, with all new white goods and so on—any landlord who has done that could make the argument that the property would be more valuable on the market. Does the cabinet secretary not accept that point?

I wonder how you define “quality” in law or in regulations.

Sorry—I still have one final question. I know that I have taken up a lot of time, but there is a lot to cover.

Given the state of health boards’ finances, which this committee has covered previously, I am struck by a question: why would boards want to take on the responsibility of owning the buildings that GPs work from?

Good morning to you, Auditor General, and to your team.

This is a damning report, but for those of us who occasionally have to use GPs, it probably tells us nothing that we did not know already: services are strained, and it is often difficult for people to get a GP appointment.

You mentioned the programme for government and the announcement of 100,000 extra appointments for things such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and so on. That announcement was made in the context of the First Minister saying that he wanted to end the so-called 8 am rush, which refers to the booking system that many GPs use. People have to phone up at 8 am and that is it—if you cannot phone up at 8 am, quite often you are snookered.

Given that that is the First Minister’s ambition, I turn to the letter from Dr Iain Morrison of the British Medical Association—which I presume that you have seen—in which he says some very strong things. He says:

“We have called upon the Scottish Government to urgently address the shocking situation that General Practice is in and invest directly in GP practices. The funding practices receive for every patient has been eroded year after year against inflation since 2008. In all, eroded funding streams and new cost pressures have created a shortfall in practice funding of 22.8 per cent, and some £290m will be required to close that gap and deliver full funding restoration.”

Dr Morrison presumably knows what he is talking about, as he represents GPs.

Given the situation that you have outlined in your report, and those damning comments from Dr Morrison, does the First Minister have any chance of achieving his aims?

Thank you for that. The report says that the Government’s most recent annual progress report highlights that 3,540 of the 4,925 whole-time equivalent staff working across the six priority services at March 2024 were funded by the primary care improvement fund. Do you know where the other 1,300 were funded from?

In fact, they are not required to supply that data.

Yes, I noted that. I live in Lanarkshire and I am happy with my current GP, but that is only after having moved GPs because I could not get an appointment with my previous one. I have gone to a GP practice that does not operate the 8 am system, but not everyone can do that. The ability to switch is not widely known about, and it is not always that easy to do.

You mentioned spending on the six priority areas. Why does the Scottish Government not publish data on that? That limits transparency and public scrutiny. Have you asked it about that?

I will come back to data later. For now, I go back to the pressures that GPs are under, which are due to a lack of GPs and a large number of patients. In paragraph 13 of your report, you say that there are more patients registered than there are people in the country, which is quite staggering.

I was struck by paragraph 15, which shows the difference across the country. It states:

“The number of patients per WTE GP varies widely, from 721 in NHS Orkney to 2,373 in NHS Lanarkshire.”

The latter area is the one that I, the convener and Stephanie Callaghan represent. Last week, the convener and I were at a briefing at North Lanarkshire Council in which health was a big feature. Although North Lanarkshire is doing well in some respects in health terms, people are basically struggling to get healthcare, and that figure shows why. We do not have enough medical practitioners—GPs and others—which, in some parts of the country, is a challenge for the overall health of the population, is it not?

I have to say that that is all very concerning indeed. That lack of transparency is a feature of your report.

Moving on to a different issue, you say in paragraph 100:

“The Scottish Government has not been transparent about the investment in sustainability loans and has made a misleading announcement about the uptake of the loans”.

It is quite an accusation to make that the Government is being misleading. What lies behind that?

It strikes me that, if we want to end the 8 am rush—it is not just the First Minister who is saying that he wants to do that; other political leaders have said the same—we need to know how many GP practices actually operate that system in order to start to tackle it. We do not know that, do we?