Seòmar agus comataidhean

I just want to declare my interest as a practising NHS GP.

You are right to say that it affects young people. Has the Scottish Government made any assessment of the economic impact of long Covid?

There are health boards that do not have a long Covid pathway in place. When do you expect that to happen, and will you be putting pressure on health boards to come up with those pathways quickly?

Thank you.

I have a second question. I recently visited Possil pharmacy, which is investing in technology to benefit patients. It has automated dispensing machines that allow it to provide out-of-hours prescription collections. It has invested in a robot to help to create blister packs, which many patients are now unable to get help with. Obviously, that is very expensive, but it helps the local community significantly. Would the Scottish Government be able to make money available to help pharmacies that want to invest in those technologies for their communities? Could you create an environment where single pharmacies could group together to do such a thing?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have heard some heart-breaking stories from 11-year-olds with long Covid who are unable to get out of bed, asking their parents if this is all that their lives are going to be and saying that it is just not worth continuing. What would you say to such a child and their family? What tangible help have you put in place and will be put in place for kids with long Covid?

When will that happen for repeat prescriptions?

Thank you.

Community link workers in Glasgow have written to me en masse to say that there are deep-end practices where community link workers are being cut. The meeting that I had suggested that some—a lot—of community link workers are considering their jobs, given the changes that might be coming down the road. If that is the case, how are we helping primary care if we are getting those deep cuts in our link workers?

In the light of what Nicky Connor has said about the real-time action that is being taken, and Pamela Milliken’s comments about being more flexible and the things that are being done, I wonder whether both witnesses can follow up on their comments in writing with more information about what all that means.

I want to turn from primary to secondary care and ask John-Paul Loughrey from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine a question. On your data on people dying as a result of waiting in accident and emergency departments too long, we, too, have found that the number of people dying in A and E after waiting more than four hours has gone up 164 per cent since 2018. Are you concerned that we are going to see that situation escalate this winter?

We have been talking in exactly the same terms for a decade now. For example, John-Paul Loughrey might send me a letter from A and E on a Saturday, saying, “Can you please do these things for this patient, who doesn’t necessarily need to be here?”, but when the patient rocks up to me on the Monday, I will still not have that letter. We do not talk in that way.

Let me ask something more basic. When are GPs going to be able to do something as simple as repeat prescriptions without having to sign them in what might be a dangerous way? As a GP, I have to sign all repeat prescriptions, but I do not have the time to read them—no GP does. When can we have something really basic and simple that other countries have had for a long time, which is automatic repeat prescriptions?