Chamber and committees

I am sorry—my dog is barking.

I have repeatedly spoken about the right to recovery bill, which will be proposed in Parliament in the next couple of weeks. We have worked with front-line organisations that say that the bill is the right thing to do. Once she has seen its content, will the minister back the bill?

Good morning, minister, and thank you very much for attending.

I have just been trawling through the latest statistics. The police division with the greatest number of suspected drug deaths—187—was greater Glasgow, followed by Lanarkshire with 67, Edinburgh city with 64, and Tayside with 64. Is any specific work taking place in those divisions to identify what the issue is and how we can help and support people?

The Scottish Government’s residential rehab mapping report stated that the Government funded only 13 per cent of residential rehab places in Scotland in 2019-20. Promises have been put forward regarding funding and places. Can the minister tell me how many extra residential rehab beds will be available by the end of this year?

Can I ask one more question, convener?

Across my own health board, with our heroic front-line staff under unprecedented pressure, we are seeing cancellations of elective surgery appointments, leaving thousands to wait in pain before they can get the surgery that they need. That is having a brutal knock-on effect on accident and emergency departments, this being the fourth week in a row in which waiting times have hit the worst level on record. What reassurances can be given to staff? When will a winter preparedness plan be published?

Thank you for the opportunity to ask this question, convener.

Cabinet secretary, you rightly started off this evidence session by praising and thanking our front-line NHS and social care staff. I think that everyone in Scotland would agree with you on that. You also said that they are “knackered”. I do not think that that is just a physical health issue; it is also a mental health and wellbeing issue. Therefore, can you say what is in place to support the pandemic-related mental health and wellbeing issues of our NHS and social care staff? Will staff have protected time to use the wellbeing support that is available?

You have addressed all my questions in one answer, but I will come back to you later in the meeting.

Good morning. I want to pick up on the issue of capacity in the NHS, which Paul O’Kane started off on. We have seen waiting times at record levels over the past few weeks and, last week, our largest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which serves my constituents, warned people not to turn up at the accident and emergency department unless their condition was life threatening. As we move into the winter period, waiting times will be high. What is being done to alleviate the problems now?

Much has changed since last year’s debate on the programme for government. With more Scots having been protected by the roll-out of vaccination, we can turn our attention to the major challenges that are facing us all. How we address those challenges will define us as a nation for years to come.

As Douglas Ross said, securing Scotland’s economic recovery and creating jobs must be a priority for this Parliament. That is why Conservatives have called for the programme for government to ditch plans for an unwanted second independence referendum so that we can tackle the economic emergency that we all face.

Presiding Officer, I hope that you will indulge me because, given my brief, I would like to focus on our NHS, which is at crisis point. Even before the pandemic, Audit Scotland warned in 2019 that Scotland’s NHS was under increasing pressure, with rising demands and costs, while it was struggling to meet key waiting-time standards. Moving forward to 2021, we can see that the immense pressure that has been brought to bear by the pandemic has exacerbated those challenges.

Throughout the pandemic, health workers across Scotland have demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. However, it is important that we are clear about the scale of the pressures that our NHS faces as we head into the winter. Many services are at risk of spiralling completely out of control. Meanwhile, bodies including the Royal College of Nursing have made it clear that staff are exhausted, burned out and demoralised following months of acute pressure.

Several of the commitments that the First Minister announced in her statement are welcome—not least, the investment in our front-line services—but they are, frankly, long overdue, given the scale of the challenges that our services face.

I will take as an example accident and emergency services, which are on their knees. Last week, Scotland recorded its third consecutive week of record lows for A and E performance. With nursing and medical staff being pushed to the limit, more Scots are being forced to wait longer for emergency care. As staff who work on the front line have acknowledged, the figures are the kind that we typically see in the harshest winter months. That is not sustainable, nor is it acceptable.

The pressures are also having clear knock-on effects on other emergency services that people rely on in times of need, including the Scottish Ambulance Service. Members are hearing from their constituents of cases in which vulnerable people have waited for hours on end for ambulances to arrive. In one case, the wait was a staggering 16 hours.

Something that the First Minister did not mention in her statement this afternoon was long Covid—an awful aspect of the disease, in which horrible symptoms can linger for weeks or even months on end. Figures point to there being about 70,000 people in Scotland who are suffering with long Covid, which has a debilitating impact on their physical and mental health. The failure to act on long Covid has also placed undue pressure on our NHS. That is why, with my colleague Dr Sandesh Gulhane spearheading our work, we have been demanding that the Government treats long Covid with the seriousness that it deserves.

However, if the NHS recovery plan is anything to go by, we have a long way to go. As part of our suggested—

I thank the cabinet secretary for that intervention. However, I was talking about long Covid, and the £600 million that I spoke about was just to deal with the backlog that our NHS is facing and to help front-line staff to achieve what they are being asked to achieve.

As part of our suggested response, we call for the establishment of specialist long Covid treatment clinics to offer vital support to the people who are worst affected. I recognise that the Government has set aside funding for research and innovation, but we are clear that practical support is urgently needed for long Covid assessment, treatment and rehabilitation. To put it simply, I say that so many Scots are suffering with long Covid, and many cannot afford to wait any longer for help.

Over the years, we have—sadly—become accustomed to the shocking statistics on deaths that are linked to alcohol and drug addiction. Not only was the number of alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland last year the highest that it has been for 12 years, but drug deaths have also soared to record levels, with the 2020 level representing the seventh annual increase in a row.

Given that awful record, people rightly expected—as Douglas Ross pointed out earlier—new measures in the area to form a key part of the NHS recovery plan. Yet again, however, the plan has been found wanting, with nothing new in the document to address alcohol-related and drug-related deaths. Given that we have a clear public health emergency that has significant implications for victims and the NHS, the Government must make the matter a top priority.

With the backing of recovery groups, the Scottish Conservatives will bring to Parliament a bold and ambitious bill on the right to recovery. We want to make sure, with additional funding targeted at residential rehab, that everyone can access the necessary treatment that they need in order to survive and get better.

I recognise that our country has been gripped by the pandemic. Ensuring that our healthcare system is match fit will be one of the greatest challenges that any Government will face. However, I remain concerned that, in several areas, the programme for government fails, at least in substance, to respond properly to the array of the greatest challenges that we face.