Chamber and committees

What is being passed on to the NHS in Scotland is more than the consequentials that are being given to us. It is oor taxpayers’ money that is being divvied up by folk that we didnae even vote for. It is probably good that Jackie Baillie made that intervention.

In Dumfries and Galloway, thanks in no small part to the work of the health and social care partnership’s chief operating officer, Julie White, that support has enabled the board to discharge from hospital 25 people who were medically fit for discharge but whose discharge had been delayed. That was achieved in one week, and I congratulate Julie White and the teams on that success. I understand that the approach taken by Dumfries and Galloway health and social care partnership is being shared with other boards. I look forward to the update from Julie and the teams at NHS Dumfries and Galloway and the health and social care partnership and to hearing how that was achieved. If some boards can make it work, let us share the good practice and get it done.

In addition, NHS 24 is taking forward plans to recruit around 200 new starts before the end of March. In the run-up to Christmas, more than 40 whole-time equivalent call operators, call handlers and clinical supervisors were recruited, allowing for more people to be directed to the most appropriate care setting for them.

On funding more generally, the Scottish Government has committed in the budget more than £18 billion for health and social care. That is around 52 per cent of the overall budget for the Scottish Government. Again, we dinnae have control over what comes our way. I want to pick up on Emma Roddick’s points about employment law. It is really hard to manage what we would like to do when we constantly have a ball and chain roon the neck of this place.

I would like Labour to be a bit more realistic.

The £600 million health and care winter plan is supporting the recruitment of 1,000 additional multidisciplinary staff and delivering £45 million for the Ambulance Service to support on-going recruitment and services.

I realise that I am out of time, Presiding Officer. I welcome the steps that the Scottish Government continues to take to help to support our fantastically valuable national health service in Scotland.

Just let me finish this one wee point, then I will.

The pressure that we are trying to alleviate with 300 additional care home beds is caused by delayed discharge. That funding will allow health and social care partnerships to pay more than the national care home rate for beds, which is £719.50. That is in addition to the 600 interim care beds already in operation in the country.

I will give way to Jackie Baillie before I come on to what is working in Dumfries and Galloway.

Will Colin Smyth take an intervention?

Cabinet secretary, you will be aware that I have written to you on a few occasions about specific issues in remote and rural Dumfries and Galloway, such as those in Stranraer. I appreciate your responses, so thank you for those.

I am interested in the centre for excellence for remote and rural health and social care. Sir Lewis talked about education, innovation and collaboration. I am interested in whether the centre will have a role to advocate for people in remote and rural areas, because those folk cannae access the self-help groups and the people who are in urban areas. I know that people use Zoom and so on to engage, so is there a place in the centre for excellence for advocacy to be supported or delivered? I know that Australia has a National Rural Health Commissioner. I am interested in those aspects of the centre for excellence.

My question is related to Sandesh Gulhane’s questions about Caithness and Moray and Dr Gray’s hospital. There is the same issue in Stranraer. I hate to go on about it, but women are delivering their babies at the side of the road. There are real recruitment challenges for Dumfries and Galloway in finding midwives for a midwife-led maternity unit at Galloway community hospital. I am not advocating that we start doing emergency caesarean sections—as a former operating room nurse, I have been there, taking babies out of people by crash section in a rush, so I am not advocating that we start doing that in Stranraer, for instance. I know that Maree Todd visited Stranraer in October last year to engage with the local Galloway community hospital action group and to visit the hospital.

The cabinet secretary does not have to respond to this today, but I know that there are real challenges in relation to midwifery-led units, and I am interested in getting an update on the work that is being done with NHS Dumfries and Galloway around maternity services being reinstated at Stranraer.

It seems reasonable that the order provides the GDC and the NMC with greater flexibility to amend their existing international registration pathways. I know that there are challenges with regard to access to NHS dentistry, especially in my region of Dumfries and Galloway. Will the order ultimately help us with recruitment of dentists and dental practitioners, especially with regard to the issues that are a consequence of Brexit?

I have a quick question on education and skills. The mobile skills unit was developed in order to deliver education in more rural areas. A big lorry-sized van provides simulated training for chest tube insertions or even intraosseous needle insertions, for example, and I know that it has been all over Scotland. Is there an opportunity to focus more on that kind of education delivery in remote and rural areas, using the managed skills network or the clinical skills network?

I am thinking about the need for an advocacy role because we have been looking at cancer pathways for more than 20 years. People from Stranraer, for example, go to Edinburgh for radiotherapy. That trip is 140 miles compared with 87.2 miles to go to Glasgow. That is an issue if we want to support people getting their care closer to home.

People in Dumfries and Galloway go to the South East Scotland Cancer Network, but nowhere in that region is in the south-east of Scotland. Are there opportunities to look at the cancer pathways to ensure that people in Stranraer go to Glasgow instead of travelling 140 miles to Edinburgh?

When Jeane Freeman was the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, she advocated for people being offered choice. People might want to go to Edinburgh for radiotherapy if they have family there and they can stay overnight.

There are on-going challenges in supporting patients and managing expectations. I understand that people must sometimes go to other centres because there is no ability to deliver radiotherapy locally—the new hospital in Dumfries does not offer that treatment, for example.

I would appreciate some follow-up information, so thank you for your offer.