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Yes. I was referring to the challenges over the winter, when calls have, perhaps, gone unanswered. I was asking how we can ensure that that does not happen and about solutions to deal with the pressures.

It did, convener. Given the remarks that I just made about the importance to us all of the Promise, and given the degree to which the profile of people who have care experience—and, indeed, the care system itself—have been at the forefront in the past few years, I was quite surprised. The group is definitely of its time. It will provide a strong forum in which we, as decision makers, can continue to scrutinise that journey through hearing the voices of care-experienced young people.

I would also like to thank you, convener, for reminding colleagues that STAF is in the Parliament this week. Our stall continues today, and we have an event this evening. I will abuse my position slightly to plug that event, in case colleagues are around at 5.30 this evening.

Thanks, convener.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to colleagues on the committee. I am very pleased to be here this morning to share with you the intentions of the cross-party group on care leavers.

The establishment of the group arose from a sense that there was no dedicated focus for care leavers in the Parliament. We have a number of cross-party groups that cater for children who are currently looked after, and other cross-party groups cross-cut around social work and other issues. However, there was a sense that young people who are leaving the care system and young people who have lived experience of being in the care system do not have a voice in the cross-party group system.

As is summarised in the papers that the committee has received, the purpose of the group is

“to inform MSPs of the many social, emotional wellbeing and financial challenges which care leavers face”

via the forum of the CPG, which will seek to share information and knowledge about the experiences of care leavers and those who support them. We will work in collaboration across the other cross-party groups that I have mentioned, and I think that we will have a particularly strong relationship with the cross-party group on social work.

We intend to have a wide membership, which will be drawn from young people with lived experience and adults who have gone through the care system. We will seek to express their views, opinions and ideas to the Government and Parliament and to share their vision for what Scotland can be.

A core part of what the group will do could arise from the work that we are all committed to on the Promise. There is a sense that the cross-party group would want to contribute to the progress of the Promise and the scrutiny of the Promise, ensuring that we, as decision makers, as well as wider civic society in Scotland, keep the promise that we made to care-experienced young people and those leaving care across Scotland.

A number of other related issues will be discussed in the group, but, in summary, it will be about putting care leaver issues on the map and ensuring that a group that is often underrepresented is represented in our Parliament.

Good morning, panel. We have already touched on self-referral pathways, but I am interested in the public’s awareness of self-referral. We know that there are initiatives out there, such as pharmacy first, which we have talked about a bit, and the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde right care, right place web resource, which tells people where they should go and when. According to research that has been done for the inquiry, public awareness of some of those initiatives is not always high; in particular, public awareness of when to self-refer outwith pharmacies is not high. I think that a lot of people are aware of the pharmacy avenue, but perhaps not other avenues.

My first, broad question, therefore, is: how can we raise awareness of self-referral and people’s ability to self-refer? As I have mentioned pharmacies, I ask Clare Morrison to answer that question first.

Good morning to the panel. I want to focus on the signposting journey. Throughout the evidence that we have taken so far, we have heard that one of the barriers to signposting is perhaps the constantly changing landscape of service providers. There are also barriers for patients in relation to communication and understanding what is available. How can we improve people’s understanding of what is available and the communication that exists to let people know about it?

That is very helpful.

Is your sense that it is working effectively when someone is signposted to an AHP or whoever and they go on that journey, or do people sometimes go round the houses, for want of a better expression, and end up back at the GP?

Last week, we heard some evidence about the requirement for protected learning time for everyone who is involved in a practice, which includes reception staff. Other people have talked about how we can protect that time properly. Dr Marshall, I do not know whether you have had experience of, for example, being part of NHS 24 or of covering phone lines in your practice, but I believe that that there might be ways of ensuring that people feel that they are getting a service from their practice while putting in place protected learning time for everyone who works in the practice. Can you say something about that?

I thank the panel for those responses.

I heard what Harjit Sandhu said about the GP traditionally being the gatekeeper. I think that people are trying to find other avenues. However, some of the written submissions that the committee has received, particularly from the health and social care partnerships, suggest that there is still nervousness about people on a self-referral pathway going from pillar to post and ending up in an emergency setting, because there is no relationship with the first point of contact—the GP.

Do we need to drill down into that to understand who needs to go via the GP as the first point of contact in order to access other services? After all, as some of the panel’s answers have suggested, self-referral might be easier for some people than others. Is there an acceptance that we need to look at individuals and their needs?