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Professor Bell spoke about the elephant in the room, which is finance. Pay is part of that, and trade unions such as the GMB are advocating for £15 an hour for care workers. I am trying to get a sense of whether procuring better and more sustainable rates of pay is the first step, and the other aspects that we have discussed—training, qualifications and social care being a longer-term career—will follow from that. Derek, do you want to comment on that?

The discussion help us begin to think about the context of coming out of the pandemic and what will happen as we move forward. I am interested in service redesign, which has been touched on in previous answers. I am interested in what we can learn from the pandemic about doing things differently and in ways that bring savings. I am thinking about digital technology in particular. With regard to social care, the use of technology-enabled care is interesting. I want to get a sense of where the opportunities are for some of that.

No, that was helpful. I have some questions on sustainability, but we can move on to that later.

That is key. Retention has been identified across the board as being important, and successfully encouraging people to stay in the professions is about culture. Does the Royal College of Nursing want to add anything, particularly on the comments about burn-out in the nursing profession? [Interruption.]

My questions are on Covid-19 and its wide-ranging impacts. Every day, we see the direct impacts of the disease in terms of the number of hospitalisations and deaths, but I am interested in the longer-term indirect effects on health and in the impact that long Covid might have, particularly on people who already suffer from poor health or live in areas of deprivation.

If we take long Covid first, I am keen to understand its impact. We obviously do not have a lot of data and information on it yet. That is emerging, and there is still a long way to go in terms of interventions, but I am looking to get a sense from the panel of the impact that long Covid will have and what interventions it might require.

I thank the panel for their helpful introductory remarks, which touched on a number of key themes including in particular the pressures that are being experienced in our NHS, the pressure on staff and the staffing challenges that we face.

I am keen to get a sense of what you think about the Government’s recovery plan. There have been a variety of responses to its publication. For example, Dr Lewis Morrison of the BMA has said that it is at best “only a start”, and I have heard the RCN highlight the point that has just been made about the pressure on staff and whether the plan does enough to address staff burn-out and stress. Dr Robertson, will you tell us what confidence you have that the recovery plan will deliver the required transformation?

I would not disagree with much of what has been said about the real pressure on staff.

I am interested in our immediate crises, and particularly in the onset of winter and winter pressures across the piece. Obviously, there is long-term workforce planning, but there is clearly an immediate need, particularly in acute settings, when it comes to how we physically keep the show on the road. We are seeing a lot of pressures at the moment, and we are not even at peak winter yet when it comes to admissions and use of service.

I am therefore keen to understand what is needed and what can be done to increase resources and staffing right now, and what would make most difference. I appreciate that that is not easy to answer, but I am keen to get a sense of that, possibly again from Dr Sue Robertson or the RCN, although I can ask everyone, I suppose.

Good morning, minister. I will follow up on that point. We all understand the importance of better understanding the information on and patterns of instances of people overdosing and being treated in or attending hospital. On reporting, I am keen to understand what we can do to get more data. For example, hospital admissions information does not cover accident and emergency attendances, nor does it cover cases in which people are treated by the Scottish Ambulance Service. How can we get more data on where people are treated, and how can we make sure that we follow them up?

I agree with much of what the minister said, certainly on the need for local connections and accountability and the need to improve the status of those services. It will be interesting to see people’s views during the consultation.

I want to ask about alcohol and drug partnership reporting in the here and now. The Government previously committed to providing information from ADPs on spending by integration joint boards. That happened in 2016-17 and 2017-18; I think that 2018 was the last time that we had those figures.

That was going to be a baseline for future reporting, but there has been no further information since then. As part of the intelligence to enable us to understand what is working on a local level and where spend is going, it would be helpful to have such information. Will the minister say something about that? What other intelligence can we garner from ADPs that will help us to map some of this area and meet the MAT standards?

Prior to the summer recess, we had quite a consensual debate on many of these issues, certainly on medication-assisted treatment standards and the need for strong and timely implementation of them—April 2022 has been set as the target. I am keen to hear a progress update from the minister. Also, how will that progress be reported? I think that the minister made a commitment to report to the Parliament six-monthly on MAT standards. Could you address those points, please?