Chamber and committees

We do not have time for interventions in these wee, four-minute time slots.

I am interested in promoting the peatland restoration work that is taking place in south-west Scotland. The team at NatureScot has been working with external partners on the restoration of degraded, eroding and modified peatlands. That is one of the most effective ways of locking in carbon and supporting the promotion of nature. It offers a clear, nature-based solution to the climate crisis.

I visited one of the peat bogs at Moss of Cree near Wigtown with Dr Emily Taylor, who is the Crichton Carbon Centre general manager and a specialist in deep peat. The Moss of Cree project, which involves peat measuring 6m deep, shows how the peatland ACTION restoration programme can support landowners and land managers through the process of peatland restoration, from initial ideas and planning through to successful delivery. The farmer Ian McCreath has worked closely with the programme, which helped him to put in a successful funding application to create a 62 hectare forest-to-bog restoration project and bring it to fruition. That project is a fantastic case study. I invite the minister to come and visit the Crichton Carbon Centre to see that vital work.

Time is short this afternoon. I look forward to hearing the minister’s response and to continuing to progress the promotion and protection of our nature in Scotland.

I welcome that Meghan Gallacher has brought the debate to the chamber, and I note the degree of detail that she described with regard to Dr Gray’s and Caithness hospitals.

I remind members that I am still a registered nurse. As a former clinical educator who provided specific clinical education support for midwives in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, I agree with the member that it is important that expectant mothers are able to deliver their babies as close to home as possible. However, that must be clinically safe, and the right option in each case.

As the minister will know, I have a number of challenges to make regarding maternity services in Wigtownshire and Dumfries and Galloway, and I will focus on some of those.

When mothers have to be transferred further from home to receive the best care for their baby, it is crucial that support is in place to enable parents to be at their baby’s cotside as much as possible. I am aware that the Scottish Government is committed to improving maternity and neonatal services in Scotland in order to ensure that they provide the right care for every woman and baby and give all children the best start in life.

We heard in the previous debate, which I sat through, that in 2015, maternity services underwent a national review, through which “The Best Start: A Five-Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland” was developed. In February 2017, the Scottish Government appointed the chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to lead the implementation programme board that will implement the five-year plan. Implementation of the best start programme was remobilised in May 2022, following a pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The plan for maternity and neonatal care in Scotland updates and builds on “Neonatal Care in Scotland: A Quality Framework”, which was published in March 2013. However, while l welcome that work, my constituents in Wigtownshire are not able to deliver their babies locally, at Galloway hospital in Stranraer. That means that many expectant mothers who are not able or who do not wish to give birth at home are required to travel 72 miles to Dumfries infirmary in order to deliver their babies.

In 2011—sorry, I think that the date is wrong there—the Clenoch birthing centre at the Galloway community hospital was operational as a community midwifery unit, providing low-risk, midwifery-led, intrapartum care as a two-baby facility. In 2018, due to sustained and significant staffing pressures, an operational decision to temporarily suspend the birthing centre at Clenoch was taken by NHS Dumfries and Galloway, and the centre is still closed.

Thanks to campaigning by expectant mothers, the Galloway community hospital action group and others, NHS Dumfries and Galloway commissioned a review of Wigtownshire maternity services, which reported in July this year. The initial findings of the independent review of maternity services in Wigtownshire have been published, and the review has the support of the community maternity hub at Galloway community hospital. The review wants to see the community midwifery maternity hub return to the hospital.

The hub would provide an on-call, intrapartum midwifery unit. A lot of constituents have long campaigned for the return of a local midwifery-led service unit in Wigtownshire. That includes the Galloway community hospital action group, with which I have worked closely. The previous Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport, along with colleagues, met with members of the action group in Stranraer.

I understand that if the service is to be resumed, changes will be required in the current Clenoch birthing centre, including an upgrade in the facilities and equipment, with projected costs of £103,000. The report says that staff will also require updated education on obstetric emergencies before maternity services can properly resume. Those recommendations are a step forward, and I thank everyone who has been involved in carrying out the review.

I acknowledge, however, that the safety of mothers and babies is of paramount importance. Expert clinicians, doctors, midwives and anaesthetists must be involved, not only for their clinical input; they must be able to be recruited and retained in order for service delivery to be achieved safely and returned to Wigtownshire.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the role of its international offices in promoting Scotland internationally. (S6O-02520)

Thank you.

I want to come in on the back of other questions that have been asked. In chapter 2 of its “Tipping the Scales” report, IPPR Scotland says:

“Important action has been taken within devolved powers ... demonstrating what can be achieved with political will and investment.”

The report talks about the devolution of new welfare powers and the establishment of Social Security Scotland. More than £1 billion has been spent on 12 new benefits, which include council tax reduction, the Scottish child payment and the best start grant.

A lot of those benefits are outside the health portfolio. Ministers in the Scottish Government such as the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport have their own portfolios, but everything crosses over in relation to health improvement, so I am interested in how we consider the budget.

We should value what has been set up by Social Security Scotland—it focuses on fairness, dignity and respect rather than taking the punitive approach that the Department for Work and Pensions takes. Should anything else be picked up in relation to which form of welfare support would help to improve Scotland’s safety net?

Okay, thank you.

I suppose that it is an NHS board’s responsibility to deliver. The Government has a plan but the NHS board would be the one to deliver the women’s health plan in NHS Lothian, for instance. NHS Lothian would propose how it would monitor the delivery of its plans and the outcomes that it has achieved.

I am asking because I am the co-convener of the wellbeing economy cross-party group and we have had lots of interesting discussion about how it is good to support wellbeing as a nation and not just to measure productivity on GDP.

We will probably come back to tackling poverty, but I have a question on that issue. Certain things are reserved to the UK Government and some items, such as health, are devolved, but the money is not. What role do food producers and retailers have in engaging with Government to look at how we support diets that are healthier and ensure that people can afford healthier food? Some of the food that is marketed right now, such as processed food, is jam-packed full of calories and does not tell your brain that you are satiated, so you keep eating. There is emerging research on that, which I find pretty fascinating. Is there a role for supermarkets, restaurants and cafes to work with Government to help to deliver a less obesogenic environment?

I recently read that the Scottish Government is providing £700 million of support to mitigate things such as the bedroom tax. I know that this is straying into politics. The Barnett formula makes adjustments for Scotland, but we are constrained by the way that the budget is delivered in Scotland by another Government. Do we need to be looking at alternatives to how the Scottish Government’s block grant is delivered?