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Do you see any difficulty around enforcement if a 15m no-smoking zone encompasses areas that are not part of hospital grounds, such as public footpaths?

As we have picked up on already, not everyone has access to the internet or to electronic devices that will allow them to quickly visit NHS Inform, for example. During the pandemic, we have seen reactive and quick changes to capacity and to where people should receive care. How do we communicate changes in how care should be accessed to people who are experiencing digital exclusion?

Of course. As we have picked up on already, not everyone has access to the internet or to electronic devices that allow them to quickly access NHS Inform. During the pandemic, places where people receive care have had to change quickly and at short notice. How do we communicate changes to how their care should be accessed to people who are perhaps digitally excluded?

Good morning, panel. Social prescribing covers a wide range of activities and organisations, as we have heard from all of you this morning. Do community link workers have time and capacity to engage with all aspects of social prescribing? Is there a risk that they are being asked to help people with an ever expanding range of issues, from mental ill health to financial concerns, together with the many other things that you have all detailed this morning, but without any increased capacity and support?

In its submission, NHS 24 highlighted that, in stressful moments, when people are feeling unwell or in pain,

“figuring out ... what is available ... can be a new pressure”,

which often results in them reverting to the use of traditional access points such as general practice or accident and emergency.

That suggests that we need proactive communication so that people are already aware of what is available before they reach that stressful point. How successful has proactive messaging been, and what more needs to be done to ensure that people are fully aware of where they should go when they need unscheduled care?

Good morning. Are our witnesses concerned about the ability of the NHS to recruit sufficient staff to fulfil the ambitions that are set out in the NHS recovery plan and the national workforce strategy for health and social care? How likely is it that staff will be redeployed or recruited from elsewhere to fill gaps?

A couple of Rs have just popped up in the chat box.

Good morning. Do you feel that the Government has undertaken sufficient workforce planning to ensure that multidisciplinary teams will be in place to allow delivery of the GP contract?

Thank you for those answers. Has the Government undertaken sufficient planning with regard to how infrastructure will need to change to accommodate an expanded multidisciplinary team? Do practices have the physical capacity, as well as the IT infrastructure, to accommodate that team? I suppose that that leans into the issue of data sharing, which we discussed with the previous panel.

That would be a good idea.