Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a quick clarification on my last question. I know that we discussed the capital investment consultation. My question was specifically about the remote and rural workforce recruitment strategy and the design of the consultation for it. I do not know whether you have any comments on how that will be designed to ensure that clinicians and other stakeholders do not feel that they are unable to participate in the consultation due to time constraints.

Last week, several committee members took part in an external visit to the Isle of Skye as part of our inquiry. We were based in Portree. On behalf of the entire committee, I thank the staff of Broadford medical practice and Broadford hospital for meeting us. We are incredibly grateful to those national health service staff for taking the time to discuss the myriad issues that are impacting delivery of services across the island, as well as the unique challenges that come with recruitment and retention of staff in remote and rural areas.

We are also very grateful to those on NHS Highland’s board who, behind the scenes, helped to plan the agenda for the visit and ensured that things ran smoothly, and for the committee clerks’ work in supporting the visit.

I also offer our thanks to the Skye and Lochalsh Mental Health Association for allowing us to use its facilities for a set of evening engagements. The committee members were keen to hear from service users and local stakeholders, and we are really grateful to the significant number of people who came along to meet us and engage with us, often travelling long distances in the evening to do so.

The points that were raised during the visit will certainly be taken into consideration alongside the evidence that is received throughout the inquiry, and it will be invaluable in helping to inform the recommendations in the committee’s concluding report.

I mentioned that, when we visited Skye last week, we went to the Broadford medical practice. The GPs there said that some of them work shifts in the adjacent hospital, but that they find that complex and difficult to do because they need to have two different contracts, and it can be quite a faff, as they described it, to organise that.

Is any attempt being made to make it easier for GPs to have a hybrid work pattern that includes working in a GP practice setting and working in a rural hospital setting, especially when those settings are located in close proximity?

I thank the panel for joining us today. I want to ask about the anticipated focus of the forthcoming remote and rural recruitment strategy. Can you elaborate on its key objectives and its focus?

I will make a point about some of the feedback that we got from the emergency department at Broadford hospital. There was a tragic incident in Portree at the weekend, just as we arrived. There was some reflection on that. One of the points that was raised was that rural emergency medicine is simply not attractive to a lot of people, because they see perhaps one or two cases a week and so professional development is constrained. A different approach needs to be taken on GP-led emergency care, perhaps. Are you considering that as part of the strategy?

Another issue that was raised in the visit was the hospital’s design. The hospital was a relatively recent investment by NHS Highland but a lot of the clinicians felt that their feedback had not been listened to in the development of its design. Much of that was down to time constraints because they did not feel able to leave the day job to contribute to consultations. In the development of the consultation on the workforce strategy, are you looking to tackle some of the practical constraints that mean that people find that they cannot access consultations?

How are we able to provide that certainty about imports? It is not practical to inspect every batch that enters the UK.

I ask both witnesses whether they are satisfied that the bill adequately addresses Scottish views that were expressed in response to the consultation.

I want to ask about the balance between regulation and potentially creating additional harms as a result of prohibition. We know from Scotland’s drug death crisis that prohibition has been ineffective at reducing public harms, and a recent WHO report has shown that, in Scotland, 23 per cent of 15-year-old boys and 16 per cent of girls of the same age have used cannabis. How do we balance the risk of pushing the market into the black market—that is, into an unregulated space where THC products and so on might be sold? Where do you feel that that balance sits?

Nevertheless, I see an interesting intersection here, given our perspective of drugs as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue. I am curious about where we strike the balance. Perhaps that will require a longer piece of work instead of just trying to introduce this particular approach at this point in time.

I do think that a concern is that, in certain communities, the legislation could introduce the risk of the sort of THC-related deaths in America that are associated with illicit e-cigarettes with additives such as vitamin E acetate. I am thinking about the marginal areas of particular deprivation and the exploitation of young people and wondering whether concerns could arise there.