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I expect all health and safety agencies, including Police Scotland, to work together. Food Standards Scotland has had a number of successful forays with regard to unregulated food products on the market, and they have been carried out very much in partnership with Police Scotland.

I think that I am right in saying that the evidence that you received from Healthcare Improvement Scotland described the process, which would involve inspection, making recommendations and then re-inspection. That is an appropriate way to move forward, with the caveat that it would all depend on what had gone wrong and what was being investigated.

I am not aware of any process to decline reviews.

The Scottish Government has clear guidelines for funeral directors on those areas, but Katrina McNeill can add a bit more on that.

Generally, I think that our health service can only benefit from support from the third sector. The operational improvement plan, the population health plan, and the strategic review framework all point to a need for much more holistic healthcare. That includes both the primary care that we get in our general practitioner surgeries and from opticians and pharmacists and so on, and the acute care in our hospitals, as well as a wraparound, if I can describe it like that, from the third sector, providing a different type of support that it is very good at.

That is a fair point. I understand that the majority of boards allow siblings to stay on site with their parents. I recognise what you are describing. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in that situation. I reflect on the nursing staff, the clinicians and the people that work for the YPFF who I have met and recognise how caring they are. Where possible, they will want to support families in these difficult, traumatic circumstances.

I think that the committee heard evidence from Stephen Wardle last week about the change in the model in England and the improvements in outcomes there.

Convener, I could not agree more with that final comment. I think that communication is incredibly important. The task and finish group is being clear about communicating within their sphere of influence, but I absolutely take that on board and think that it is a very fair point well made.

I will start by quoting from the best start report from 2017. It said:

“It is proposed that three to five neonatal intensive care units should be the immediate model for Scotland, progressing to three units within five years.”

That is the full quote. I am absolutely clear that we need to do this in the safest way possible, given that the intended outcome is to ensure the safety of and the best outcomes for the smallest and sickest babies.

The intention, from 2017, was always to phase the change, and that started in 2019 with two units, Crosshouse hospital in Ayrshire and Arran, and Victoria hospital in Fife. Ayrshire and Arran linked with QEUH, and Victoria in Fife linked with Lothian.

We made that first step and took learnings from that. I do not need to remind anyone in this committee that we then hit Covid, so there was a pause in the services. After Covid, as you have heard in evidence, there was a review to ensure that the circumstances were still the same. Again, that still supported the best start work.

In July 2023, I announced three new neonatal intensive care units. Last week, you heard evidence from Stephen Wardle about the model in England and the fact that, for the population size of Scotland and the number of babies, two units would be the appropriate number. However, because of the geography of Scotland—I think that Andrew Murray and Jim Crombie noted this—it was felt that a unit was needed in the north and Aberdeen was selected. That goes some way to responding to your question about geography.

I live on Islay, which is an island, as everyone knows. If these circumstances arose on Islay, the family would have to be helicoptered off the island. We have the Scottish specialist transport and retrieval service, ScotSTAR, which is both a helicopter and ambulance service, which is currently moving babies around between Wishaw, for example, and QEUH. That service has been set up for about 20 years. It is seen as a world-class service. We have hugely experienced neonatal staff working in that service giving the best support, treatment and care to families that require it. We have looked at the geography. We have looked at the central belt and also further north in Scotland. ScotSTAR and the Scottish Ambulance Service have been very involved in the work as it has progressed. Therefore, we have that support.

On capacity, you are absolutely right. My officials and I have been working hard on this question. We commissioned work to look at the capacity within each unit and the best model to support the move to three units. From my perspective, that is very important. That work spoke to the staff in each unit and took wider information, which was shared with the regional chief executives, who set up a task and finish group to move the work forward. It was never the intention to make an announcement on day 1 and have the change happen on day 2. There has always been an intention of incremental steps as we move towards the more concentrated neonatal intensive care units, which will have a throughput of around 100 babies each year, with the co-located additional services. It is important to recognise that.

I will hand over to Kirstie Campbell to talk about the clinicians’ comments.

You are absolutely right, convener. I cannot imagine what it would be like for any family to be in this situation, which is why I am trying to be completely candid with you. The baby would be transferred by ScotSTAR, and the mother would be too, if she were able. If that was not possible, we have to recognise the pressures that are on the Scottish Ambulance Service just now and the transport would be organised to mitigate any issues on availability of ambulances to support the mother’s transfer.