Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Official Report 905KB pdf

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Topical Question Time

The next item of business is topical question time. I would appreciate short and succinct questions and responses, to get in as many questions as possible.

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Endometriosis

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take in response to reports of the women’s health plan study finding that endometriosis clinical care is failing to meet the base level of care. (S6T-00443)

I know that diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis must improve, which is why we have made it a priority in the women’s health plan. Indeed, we are the only country in the United Kingdom with a women’s health plan. We want to improve access for women to appropriate support, diagnosis and the best possible treatment for endometriosis.

That is also the reason why the Scottish Government funded the report from Endometriosis UK. That important research will help us in our goal to make a meaningful difference for women whose lives are blighted by endometriosis. We welcome the four key recommendations in the report; progress is already under way to implement them.

The first meeting of the women’s health plan implementation programme board will take place this month, which will ensure that progress on the women’s health plan is achieved at pace. We will publish an implementation plan by spring 2022, which will set out more detail around how the actions will be implemented.

As the minister is well aware, endometriosis is wrecking people’s lives right now. Not only is that painful condition damaging people physically, but it is severely affecting mental health. Through being in the position of wanting to work but being signed off with the debilitating condition, or being unable to study or to care for family, people are turning to private care, even though they cannot afford it. When will surgeries start again for patients who have had an endo diagnosis?

There is work going on across the country to speed up access to surgery. Beatrice Wishart will understand the impact that the Covid pandemic has had on all elective surgeries. Elective surgeries are not just surgeries that people choose to have. The name is slightly misleading; they are surgeries that are needed but are not urgent or emergency surgeries. There has been an impact on elective surgery across the board from the Covid-19 pandemic, but I assure the member that surgery has gone on and that it will continue to go on.

We have a strong plan in place to recover the national health service post-pandemic; the women concerned will benefit from the increased level of access to surgical capacity as soon as we can deliver it.

Sexism rears its ugly head again in the debate about the issue. If the same number of men were affected by an equally painful medical condition, there would not be lengthy waits and acceptance of their pain. What measures will the Scottish Government take to increase public awareness and to improve menstrual education in schools?

I absolutely do not disagree that there is an aspect of sexism in how the illness is treated. That goes right across the board in the issues that we have included in the women’s health plan, in the challenges that women face in accessing healthcare and in the inequalities that we face.

We have an awful lot of work going on already on endometriosis through the modernising patient pathways programme for care of endometriosis, which will improve how people work together within primary and secondary care. We are exploring opportunities to partner with Endometriosis UK—which carried out for us the research that we are discussing today—and others to sponsor projects that will raise awareness and support the diverse needs of people who are living with the condition. We recently funded Endometriosis UK to help to raise awareness among people who are awaiting diagnosis.

We have been working with NHS Inform to ensure that people right across Scotland can find accurate and up-to-date information on endometriosis and on the support that is available to them. That will go live next month.

We have also—

Thank you, minister, but I would like to take more questions, if I may.

Endometriosis is a painful and often debilitating condition that requires high standards of care and treatment. Commitments in the women’s health plan are, of course, very welcome, but can the minister outline what investment the Scottish Government will be making in endometriosis research? Will she commit to regularly updating Parliament on progress, given that we know just how crucial research will be in better understanding the causes, in developing better treatments and, ultimately, in finding a cure for endometriosis?

Absolutely—I am more than happy to continue updating Parliament. We are committed to commissioning further endometriosis research into the underlying causes, diagnosis, prevention, disease-modifying treatments and care pathways, which will lead to the development of better treatment and management options, and to a cure.

We want to get the balance right so that women can access appropriate treatment and care with a working diagnosis, thereby avoiding invasive procedures when they are not required. Work on diagnosis will therefore be an absolutely key part of our research priorities.

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Police Scotland (Calls)

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that 2 million calls to Police Scotland have gone unanswered since 2018. (S6T-00450)

As Police Scotland has made clear, it has taken all necessary steps to protect the critical 999 emergency service and the non-emergency 101 service throughout the pandemic, and it has recently issued guidance to the public on the different ways to contact the police about emergencies and non-emergencies.

With a total budget allocation of £1.4 billion in 2022-23, we continue to protect real-terms funding for Police Scotland, which supports further investment in our 999 and 101 services through plans to introduce a new digital contact platform, which will further strengthen capabilities in that area.

Last year, I raised the issue of 101 calls to the police being abandoned, in light of the Lamara Bell case, which was an awful tragedy. The cabinet secretary assured me back then that the Government was “looking to learn ... lessons” from that failure.

Last year, more calls to 101 were abandoned—a staggering half a million calls—than were answered. Since 2018, nearly 2 million calls have been abandoned after a two-minute wait. The current average waiting time is nearly four minutes. What lessons have actually been learned, given the latest quite shocking statistics?

I mentioned in my previous answer the digital platform that Police Scotland, through the Scottish Police Authority, is seeking to develop. It is worth understanding why some calls are abandoned. Reasons that are given for that by Police Scotland—which, last year, introduced a range of measures to boost the 999 and 101 services—include that the police receive more than 3 million public contacts each year, and that officers and staff continue to prioritise 999 emergency calls, as they should.

Although the police have been prioritising emergency calls throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we have maintained the 101 service, despite high levels of absence and, of course, the restrictions that are due to physical distancing.

Many of the discontinued calls to which Jamie Greene referred will have been cases in which callers have been instructed to hang up and dial 999, or in which callers have decided to redial and select another option from a prerecorded menu. Sometimes, people opt to contact services through the website, or realise that they should be calling another agency. In addition, a significant number of both 999 and 101 calls are misdialled. Callers realise that and hang up.

Improvements are in train—I have mentioned the digital platform. Of course, it is right that there should be improvement. We will keep an eye on that. Of course, that is an operational responsibility for the police, through the SPA. Our responsibility is to ensure that the police are funded to make such improvements, and we are doing just that.

It is correct that there are a number of reasons why callers hang up, but it is clear that some people hang up because their call is simply not being answered. That is an indication of staffing problems, including the level of staffing, in the call-handling system.

The police have been struggling to meet demand over the past two years, which begs the question what additional resource was promised or, indeed, was given to the police by the Government to deal with inevitable staffing pressures. We know that it takes only one missed call for a tragedy to occur; we have learned that the hard way.

This year’s draft budget offers Police Scotland a £45.5 million capital budget. Essentially, that is a year-on-year real-terms cut, and it falls far short of what the police say is needed for vital information technology and infrastructure upgrades. Is it really worth risking another tragedy? Why are the police simply not being given what they have asked for and—judging by the statistics that I have highlighted—what they clearly need?

It is worth giving some context to the figures that Jamie Greene has mentioned. First of all, the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission states that the Scottish budget has reduced in real terms by 5.2 per cent this year. We have increased the budget to the police by more than 3 per cent to £1.4 billion, as I have mentioned, and we have maintained the capital programme, despite further cuts from Westminster to our capital budget.

It is simply not enough for the Opposition just to say that it wants more money to be spent on education, justice or the environment—indeed, across the board—without identifying where that money would come from, given that we know that the Westminster Government that Jamie Greene supports is cutting funding to the Scottish Government.

We have to make difficult choices. I am very pleased that, despite that grim background from Westminster, we have increased funding to the police’s resource budget. We have allowed the police to increase salaries, which has not happened down south. We have also maintained the police’s capital budgets. We are taking the action that is necessary to ensure that services are maintained.

How will the 2022-23 budget maintain the Scottish Government’s commitment to protect the police resource budget, improve service delivery, and enhance safety and security in communities across Scotland?

I thank Audrey Nicoll for her question, which allows me to say that the Scottish Government has exceeded, for example, the Conservative demand for an additional £62 million for justice and will invest an additional £188 million in 2022-23. Members should remember that there is no money for Covid recovery from the United Kingdom Government; we have to find that money from within our current budgets. The justice budget has benefited from the work of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy in that regard.

The policing budget is almost £1.4 billion for the coming year and we have maintained Police Scotland’s capital budget, which stands at £45.5 million—more than double what it was in 2017-18. All that will support continued investment in the police estate, fleet, specialist equipment and information and communications technology, and it will ensure, as the member suggests, that officers have the tools that they need to do their jobs effectively and to spend time in their communities.