Chamber and committees

Good morning, panel. I would like to dig a little bit into the issue of inequalities. As we heard in the last session, inequalities were already increasing, but the pandemic has exacerbated them quite dramatically.

I suggest that we really need to look both at how we reduce inequalities and at the whole prevention agenda. As someone eloquently put it earlier, dentistry has been, to a great degree, untapped in terms of the prevention agenda. With prevention and inequalities in mind, what role can health boards play in reducing inequalities in dental care and oral hygiene?

You might have a role in politics, in that case.

I am trying to find the solution here. We know that big issues have arisen, that inequalities are increasing and that there is a problem with, for example, the length of time between treatments, which increased so much during the pandemic. In the earlier evidence session, we heard again about an increase in the treatment required by patients. There is a perfect storm with regard to the squeeze on NHS dentists’ time, and we need to look at a long-term strategy for bringing the inequality level back down again—or, at least, preventing it from rising any further before we do so.

I want to widen the discussion out. I am happy to take comments from any member of the panel, but I will give Ms McElrath another chance to come back on to the path.

Do the other witnesses want to comment?

I will just give Ms McElrath the opportunity to respond. Do you have anything that you would like to add?

I want to follow up on some of Jackie Baillie’s questions about inequalities. There was always inequality; Professor Conway says in his submission that it was increasing before the pandemic, but the pandemic exacerbated it considerably. The figures back that up, showing that the gap grew from 7 per cent to 12 per cent between 2010 and 2020, and that between 2020 and 2022 it went up to 20 per cent. That is an obvious direct correlation with the impact of Covid.

On the pressures that have been put on dentistry, from reading through the evidence it is clear that longer times between seeing a dentist mean that more treatment is required, so the time that is required per patient has gone up significantly. It is almost a perfect storm. When we speak to people in private dentistry, we hear that they, too, are incredibly busy, so it is difficult to get an appointment with a private dentist. The system is obviously under extreme pressure. Given that we are the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, what is the pathway back from that?

Convener, do I have time for another small question?

I am very grateful, convener, for the opportunity to come along to speak on the petition. As a South Scotland MSP, I have many wind farm developments in my region, and I very often receive letters from constituents complaining about onshore wind and that particular element of planning. I am grateful that Mr Ewing is here, because he will be able to clarify this: the public perception is that there is a presumption that planning permission will be given and that, even if an application is initially turned down by the local council, it will go in front of the Government and the likelihood is that it will be passed. That is the public perception of what is happening.

In my dealings with wind farm developers, my recommendation is always that they engage more with the local community, but, as it stands, the public are not giving me the feeling that that is what is happening. Many times, it has taken them a while to find out whether a wind farm development is in the offing, and, when they do, it is often too late. Furthermore, they say that engagement from wind farm developers is very poor, although developers would say otherwise.

Given where we are—we need to generate clean energy—I totally understand the need to consider more wind farms, but we have to be more considerate about where they are to be. Last term, I fought against one—it went through anyway—that completely enclosed a town. Everywhere you look now in that town, you see wind farms, which was definitely not what the community wanted. My feeling, which I want to put to the committee, is that engagement is not what it could be. Because of that, the perception—real or otherwise—is that there is a presumption that planning permission will be given for onshore wind and that the public have little influence on that.

I wanted to speak to the petition and give you my constituents’ feelings on the issue. As I said, my postbag is fairly full as a South Scotland MSP. I think that we spoke last week about this, but perhaps one of the things that we should be doing—I am flying a kite here—is giving areas where presumption will be granted that are away from commercial farming and so on. A better-thought-out process at the planning application stage would be advantageous for all. I read through the papers, and it is correct to say that the time between submitting an application and building a wind farm is up to 13 years. That cannot be good for any of the parties who are involved, so we have to find a better way to do it. Public engagement, which the petition asks for, is a positive way forward.

Thank you, convener, for indulging me. Following on from Alex Rowley, I think that part of preparedness is about the ability of our healthcare system to cope with what comes down the line. If the same thing happened again, I fear for those on the front line if they were asked to step into the breach the way that they were last time. As part of the work that you are doing, will you look at how we look after our healthcare professionals?

Good morning, Professor Morris and Professor Evans. I am the data geek.

When we look at preparedness and try to understand what that means in practical terms, it is about understanding the threat and our ability to deploy solutions to protect the public. It is also about the ability to gather, assess and deploy data. Initially, that would be international. When we look back at what happened with Covid, it seemed that we watched—almost with morbid fascination—as it moved inexorably across the world towards us, and yet when it got here, we were not ready. We also need to look at data across all our health boards and the ability to tap into that data on the front line, almost in real time.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on where we are with both of those platforms, if you like. During the years that I have been in Parliament, a recurring theme has been that we do not yet have a healthcare platform that allows us to pick up data from around the country in real time. What are your thoughts on those points?

Working internationally means that we have to share data with other countries. Do you agree that the opportunity here is to create an environment in Scotland where, with only 6 million people, we can be agile with our data platforms?