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Thank you, convener. I declare my interest as a practising NHS GP.

There is a lot of clarity in what has been said, particularly by Nicola Gordon, who spoke about the remit of the national centre. Does the panel feel that the national centre’s remit, as it is set out right now, will significantly address the key issues facing workforce recruitment and retention in rural areas?

It is quite clear from what the panel has said that we should be finding out from the minister exactly what the centre’s remit is and then we can certainly ask you and further panellists whether that is appropriate.

I heard Michael Dickson say that it should be “a badge of honour” to work in remote and rural areas. While I commend everyone who chooses to work in the NHS, and especially those going out to rural areas, that is surely not enough. Do we not need to incentivise people to go out and work in remote and rural areas and try to grab people from other areas to come into Scotland, or even those in the central belt to relocate, so that we increase the number of people coming in rather than try to move people who are already in the area? My question is about incentivisation.

[Inaudible.]

Good morning to the panel. I start with a declaration of interest as a practising national health service general practitioner.

Among the many things that we talk about when it comes to rural healthcare, a big one is the 2018 GP contract, the point of which was to ensure a lot of allied health professionals in primary care. The idea was to take the pressure off GPs. Allied health professionals probably do a better job in many of the specific things that they choose to do. Musculoskeletal work is much better in physio, for example. However, and I have a quote,

“The new Scottish GP contract has been a complete failure based on unachievable promises. At a national level it appeared a sound plan”

but

“In rural areas there were never going to be enough pharmacists, physios, mental health workers and nursing staff to make this work”.

I turn to Sharon Wiener-Ogilvie first. Is that true? If so, what should we do?

I certainly think that my colleagues will pick up on that, so we will not delve into it just yet. You talked about inequity, which I want to come to.

I think that physio is slightly more unique, because you have gone from centralised to local services. I think that a lot of the worry is the opposite way, about local things becoming centralised.

That brings us to the question of inequality. One respondent said that AHPs should be

“equally shared in all practices”.

They used Caithness as an example:

“some ... first contact services are mostly in the NHS managed practices so not equally shared with other or rural practices so patients”

are

“unable to have equal access for care.”

Is there inequality? Clearly, for physios, that does not seem quite to be the case, but are there inequalities when it comes to other allied health professionals, especially looking at vaccinations?

Sorry—my colleagues will come in on the theme of travel, housing and other things. Will you focus a bit more on the contract and the difficulty in getting the numbers that you need?

Thank you. I do not know whether anyone else wants to come in before I ask my next question.

That was my last question. For the record, I have worked in Ayr and recently did some shifts in Fife. I have also worked in the central belt. When I can work with allied health professionals—it does not matter who they are—it is amazing; my life is so much easier. In contrast, when I go to shifts where there are no AHPs, such as the one that I did in Fife, my shifts are so much harder. It is a difficult thing.

We are hearing a lot about wider infrastructure issues, and we have heard a lot about incentives. My question relates to the work of Dr Gordon Baird in Galloway. Do you feel that having a rural and remote advocacy service would be helpful in ensuring equality as well as in holding boards and other areas to account, so that things are in place to allow people to go and work in rural and remote areas?

You have made an interesting point, Dr Makin. I have been told of rural patients who decided not to get their children’s measles vaccinations because it meant a three-hour round trip and, quite frankly, they did not see anyone, so they just said, “What’s the point?” It terrifies me that we are not getting measles vaccinations done.

Another aspect of primary care that I have been looking at is the percentage change in income allocation under the new contract. In general, if you are in the urban belt, you have seen an increase in the amount of money that you get, while in more rural areas, that increase does not seem to have happened. It almost seems as though we are trying to promote general practice and primary care in urban settings. Admittedly, 80 per cent of the population live there, but a substantial proportion of people—20 per cent—live in rural areas. What do you propose that we do for primary care to make things better for people who live in rural areas? That question is open to anyone who would like to answer.