Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have a question on the advertising of food and drink products that are less healthy and might be harmful. You said that you want to have a four-nations approach, but I am interested in how we discern what is reserved and what is devolved. We want to take forward legislation that works for us in Scotland as we try to tackle obesity and reduce alcohol consumption. I note the recommendations in the recent report by the British Heart Foundation. How can we prevent legislation that we develop being impinged upon by UK Government legislation?

Step-down care home beds have been used in previous winters to improve the flow of patients through hospitals and to get people the care that they need in the right place. Will the cabinet secretary outline how today’s announcement will help people whose discharge has been delayed into a more appropriate care setting?

This is on the back of Tess White’s question. Around one in three people with Covid-19 does not have symptoms but can still infect others. As we head into winter and face the likelihood of people gathering indoors, I am sure that the First Minister will want to reiterate how important it is that people take rapid lateral flow tests every three or four days to check for Covid-19 even if they do not have symptoms. Can she confirm that those tests will still remain free of charge in Scotland?

Will the cabinet secretary provide an update on how Scots who have been vaccinated outside Scotland—including my constituent who lives in Ecclefechan but who works for the NHS in England, where they were first vaccinated—can obtain proof of vaccination status?

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and congratulate Fulton MacGregor on securing it. I congratulate cool school uniforms for ensuring that children and young people in Coatbridge can obtain clean and comfortable school uniforms. I welcome the commitment in the Scottish Government-Green party agreement to introduce statutory guidance for schools to increase the use of generic items of school uniform. I agree that the use of exclusive supplier arrangements between schools and businesses can be extremely expensive—the cost is prohibitive for many families.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a direct and negative impact on family budgets across Scotland, including in my South Scotland region, while costs have increased significantly. Too often, school uniforms are an additional expense that families on low incomes struggle to meet.

During the pandemic, the London School of Economics carried out research into the effect of the cost of school uniforms on low-income families across the four UK nations. Case studies in the report showed that families in all parts of the UK were being driven to choose between heating or eating and that they also had to make such choices about school uniforms. The report also found that the root cause of those inequalities was the UK Government’s welfare system.

There are regional variations in support in England. I welcome the steps that the Scottish Government is taking, such as the school clothing grant of £120 for primary school pupils and £150 for secondary school pupils. Those grants are a lifeline for many families.

One participant in the LSE study, Tahlia from the Scottish Borders, articulated the challenges being faced by families as regards uniforms. Tahlia once relied on charity shops and pre-loved clothing from friends and people in the community for school uniforms. The inaccessibility of those sources during lockdown triggered a spiral of bills, debt and hunger.

Tahlia said:

“Because of covid … I’ve not received any hand me down clothes for my sons this whole year … In September had to buy 3 children all brand new uniform … I’m £2000 in debt, I ran out of money a week last Thursday … I’ve only eaten a diet based on bread and potatoes this last month as I wanted to ensure my kids had food.”

She said that just as the UK Government is proposing to take away the £20 per week universal credit uplift from the most vulnerable families in the UK. It is completely unacceptable. Once again, I call on the UK Government to reverse that callous, cruel cut.

I want to highlight some of the important work that is being carried out by dedicated people across Dumfries and Galloway to ensure that young people have access to school uniforms, such as the Dumfries uniform bank, run by Dr Amy Vetters, which I visited in 2018. The uniform bank has been operational since 2017, and is available to any family in Dumfries and the surrounding area who are struggling with the costs of school uniforms. The uniform bank has collection points at various supermarkets, where those who are able to do so can donate items of uniform. The uniform bank has helped more than 380 families so far with uniform costs. I thank Amy and the volunteers for their work.

Another organisation that works across Dumfries and Galloway is Aberlour. I visited the Aberlour Dumfries north-west resource centre campus on Monday and met Amanda McAllister, the manager. Aberlour has a range of support options available to families for school uniforms and its recent one shirt one month challenge to help with the cost of school uniforms for local families has had great support.

I welcome the debate and I support the measures that the Scottish Government has put in place to assist families with the cost of school uniforms. Again, I call on the UK Government to reverse the callous and cruel cut to the £20 per week uplift to universal credit.

I am interested in issues and ideas around fair work, recruitment and retention. My first job, before I started my nurse training, was in a care home, although that was a long time ago. What should we do to support recruitment and retention, aside from considering wages? A band 5 staff nurse gets about £15 an hour, and they train for three years, with knowledge and skills development, competency demonstration and assessment. Does there need to be more structure in education in order to encourage recruitment and retention and so that people’s roles are perceived as skilled jobs, whether they work in home care, in a residential home or in a nursing home?

In the Health and Sport Committee, we took evidence on shifting the balance of care and moving finances into a social prescribing model. One of the things that I am interested in is the prevention of type 2 diabetes complications. We spend lots of money mitigating or treating complications—£800 million is a lot of money—when those complications are preventable.

What is the value of social prescribing? Should it really be invested in more in order to help to improve health and tackle inequalities? I am interested in that because of the previous committee work on social prescribing. Maybe we should start with David Walsh.

Thanks, Gillian, but I do not actually have a supplementary question—I was just correcting a spelling mistake in the chat box. [Laughter.]

A recent Royal Society for the Protection of Birds report put the UK at the bottom of the G7 league table for how much biodiversity it has left, although it noted that Scotland had the highest level of biodiversity intactness of all UK nations. Does the minister agree that the Scottish Government can be rightly proud of its comprehensive efforts since 2007 to protect Scotland’s wildlife?

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the national eye health debate, and I congratulate my friend and colleague Stuart McMillan on securing it.

Eyesight is one of our most important senses—80 per cent of what we perceive comes through our sense of sight.

This week is national eye health week, which has been established to communicate the importance of good eye health. It rightly encourages people from every walk of life to take better care of their eyes and have regular sight tests.

There are five key areas to protecting and promoting good eye health, which Stuart McMillan has covered in more detail than I perhaps will in the time available to me.

It is worth reiterating that a healthy diet is really important. Studies show that what we eat can affect our vision. Antioxidants can help to prevent retinal damage, and one antioxidant that is hugely beneficial is lutein. Exercise is also important. Lack of exercise contributes significantly to several eye conditions, particularly among people aged 60 and over. Reduced alcohol intake is an interesting area—excessive alcohol consumption can lead to serious health conditions that can have a detrimental effect on eye health. Stopping smoking is another area. After ageing, smoking is the biggest risk factor in the development of macular degeneration.

My younger sister, Buffy, is an ophthalmic nurse specialist who specialises in glaucoma care. She keeps me and her patients right with her expert knowledge. It will be interesting to hear what she thinks of the debate, because I know that she is watching.

Optometrists play a crucial role in our community. However, as with all health professionals, they have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic, I engaged with Optometry Scotland on the negative impact that the pandemic has had on optometry, with eight months of no face-to-face appointments.

Sight Scotland has carried out research since lockdown that involved speaking to people in Scotland with visual impairment and those close to them. I thank Sight Scotland for its briefing ahead of the debate. Its report highlighted that 70 per cent of respondents said that their sight loss made lockdown a worse experience; 50 per cent said that they would not be confident about offering support to someone with visual impairment; and a large number of people said that they were unable to attend their optometrist and therefore attended hospital instead.

I recognise the impact that Covid has had on optometry services and encourage the Scottish Government to ensure that they are supported in the upcoming budget. We have heard that optometrists are potentially looking for a 3 per cent fee increase—that is the request from Optometry Scotland.

In 2016-17 alone, community eye care in Scotland saved the national health service £71 million through carrying out 1.8 million primary eye examinations. Importantly, in 2016-17 community optometry services preventing more than 370,000 people from having to attend hospital for eye issues.

In 2019, I saw for myself the very positive impact that community optometry can have when I visited Stranraer Specsavers, where I met the chair of Optometry Scotland, David Quigley, prescribing optometrist, Elaine Hawthorne, and communications officer, Ross Stevens. During the visit, I heard that, as well as identifying any specific issues with sight, an eye check—which is free in Scotland—can help to identify conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and even signs of dementia. I also heard about the benefits of having a 3D eye scan, which can give the optometrist a better picture of the eye and enable them to pick up any developing issues early, preventing late diagnosis and the need for secondary or acute care.

An issue that was highlighted was that optometrists are not recognised as allied health professionals. I was told that such recognition would help optometrists to be better at working in partnership with the national health service. I therefore ask the minister to consider whether optometry personnel could be added to the list of allied health professionals.

I realise that my time is up. I again welcome the debate. I thank Optometry Scotland for all that it does and encourage everyone to have their sight checked regularly.