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We have spoken about the lack of clarity about additional funding from the UK Government. If there is additional funding, how do you envisage its being diverted to different parts of the health service?

Thank you. It would be good to follow that up at some point, if we can, convener.

The convener touched on this earlier. Will implementation of the framework impact on parliamentary scrutiny and decision making in the policy area? If so, what impact will it have?

What action can be taken to ensure that women and their families receive joined-up care? That will obviously be quite different just now from what our ideal would be after the pandemic.

What role do universal services play in prevention of perinatal mental health problems? How can those services be strengthened or better signposted? Those questions are for Maree Todd, first.

Are the witnesses concerned about workforce morale and wellbeing and the impact on retention? Mary Ross-Davie talked about focusing on both recruitment and retention. Do you feel that, just now, there is too much of a focus on recruitment and not enough on retention?

When a woman is pregnant or has recently given birth, she will be in contact with a range of health professionals, which potentially creates a lot of opportunities to identify whether she is struggling. Are the witnesses confident that staff have the training to take up those opportunities? For example, are primary care teams, in particular, equipped to identify perinatal mental health issues?

What role could health visitors and midwives play in prevention and in proactively identifying people who are at risk of developing perinatal mental health problems? Do they have the training that they need in that respect? Perhaps we can hear from Cat Berry first.

Are the witnesses satisfied that sufficient long-term workforce planning is taking place to ensure that Scotland has the perinatal mental health workforce that it needs? Perhaps I can start with Mary Ross-Davie.

No. It is recognised by both of the proposed CPGs that specific work needs to be done in each area. We could spend years discussing the work that is needed in both of the spheres relating to those conditions, which is why the decision has been taken in this session that they should have their own dedicated cross-party groups.

The purpose of the cross-party group on stroke is to provide oversight, encouragement and support in the implementation of a progressive stroke service in all health boards, based on the recommendations of the new stroke action plan, which will be published next year. Increased political awareness of the scale and impact of stroke and the benefits that implementation of a progressive stroke service will make, as well as increased political awareness of stroke as a national clinical priority, will help to ensure that stroke is treated as a clinical priority in all health boards.

Stroke is the third most common cause of death in Scotland. In addition, it can be a very disabling event for those people who survive their stroke. It accounts for about 7 per cent of the health spend. The ethos of the CPG will be about focusing all meetings on the current stroke improvement work. The CPG will be part of forming the conditions in which those stroke improvements can take place. It will contribute to and support the opportunity for the significant change promised by the commitments in the 2019-20 programme for government and the subsequent good work to date.

Although there are currently no external members listed for the group, apart from the secretariat, we will invite a range of other organisations to join shortly, and we will update Parliament on that once we have done so. That will include third sector charities, regulatory bodies and other health and social care organisations. Individuals will also be invited to join the group, including clinicians and those with lived experience of stroke. Those names will be provided to Parliament as soon as possible, so that the web page can be updated.

We are aware that a similar group existed previously as part of the cross-party group on heart disease and stroke. As the Government treats the two conditions separately, with their own action plans, we believe that it is better to separate into two CPGs so that both conditions can receive the attention that they require. Where appropriate, we will seek to work with the proposed cross-party group on heart disease. Given that our proposed group’s aim is to scrutinise the upcoming stroke improvement work, I do not envisage there being a huge amount of crossover.