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But I had asked both—

Something that you said sparked a question: how are common grazing funds distributed? If environmental payments come in to a common grazing, how are they split up among the crofters?

It went broader than I thought it would, but anyway.

I am going to challenge that, Ian, because we have had numerous committee meetings at which the BAME community, disabled communities and others have all been taken into consideration. Time and again, we have talked about messaging. We had Jason Leitch before us specifically to talk about how to target that messaging. I challenge the point that you are making.

Would acceptance of the existence of the disease not come before the assessment? Earlier, Ian Mullen said that people dismiss the idea that it exists in the form that it does.

Yes, the systems are important in terms of allowing people to deal with the illness.

Let me just clarify that you are not necessarily talking about long Covid clinics but about chronic illness clinics, for want of a better description.

Sammie, would you like to come in?

Sorry, Jane. I am going to stick with you, because I am on a thread here. The rest of you can come in in a bit. If the range of symptoms can be distilled down, which areas need to be prioritised in co-ordinating care and help for long Covid sufferers?

I thank you all for your patience and your determination to be here, which I know is causing some of you some difficulty.

I will try to do the mop-up bit at the end. The other committee members will have heard me talk about this before. I was interested to hear you talking about having complex issues. We know that women going through the menopause have exactly the same problem: they cannot get individual treatment. Whether it is menopause, ME or long Covid, there seems to be an issue in the health service around the need to treat things holistically. I have no idea how we solve that, but I hope that this inquiry will bring the health service and practitioners to the Parliament so that we can have a conversation about how we can improve the situation. We do not have the answers; we ask the questions so that people can come up with the answers.

How do we co-ordinate the support for folk who are suffering from long Covid? How do we bring things together so that we have comfort that what you have been dealing with is being dealt with? I am hearing that none of you feels as though what you are dealing with is being taken seriously.

Let me push you on that point. In our evidence sessions, we have heard that long Covid has around 200 different symptoms and that someone could have one, 10 or 50 of them. Have you ever thought, “That is what has happened; there is nothing that I can do to change it”? Have you considered that?