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Midwives in Wigtownshire and across my South Scotland region are facing increasing pressures in their workload due to rapidly growing work. The pressure is intensified in the region by travel distances between the towns and villages.

As Emma Harper did, I note that if the Scottish Government is truly going to ensure that women in Wigtownshire and other rural areas have a choice of where to give birth, it will have to tackle recruitment and retention. Can the minister give us a timescale for when she might be able to look at the issue for that particular area? Retention is a major issue in the midwife profession.

I am pleased to close the second debate for Scottish Labour. As before, I thank the Liberal Democrats for bringing this important debate to the chamber in their own time.

Having listened to the debate, I think that it is fair to say that NHS dentistry in Scotland is in crisis. Patients cannot get an appointment, dentists are leaving NHS practices, and our constituents and communities are suffering. I note, however, as Willie Rennie acknowledged, that when services are available, they are of high quality. Dentists are doing the best job that they can for their patients.

Despite what some members on the back benches think, this is a crisis and much of it is of the Government’s making. It should worry the Government that I do not think that a single member of the public really trusts it to be able to fix the situation, so it needs to demonstrate that it can take action that will fix it.

In the amendment, the cabinet secretary again goes for the blame everyone approach, rather than talk about the Government’s involvement. It is quite remarkable how often we have to go over that. To be honest, it is not surprising but, given that we have all talked about the information that we get in our inboxes from constituents, it is an insult to dentists and patients not to acknowledge some of the things that the Government has not put in place.

It is fair to say that it is a self-congratulatory SNP amendment that calls for Parliament to welcome the Government strategically prioritising dentistry access—after 17 years in power—and to thank dentists for their “continued commitment”. We all know from our inboxes that dentists stay in the NHS because of their commitment to it. It is little wonder that patients feel that they are being forced out of NHS dentistry and that they are unable to get an NHS dentist.

Of course, it is right that we acknowledge the impact of the pandemic on dentistry because of its face-to-face nature. We know that dentists have by no means recovered, but it would be entirely disingenuous to suggest that the problem is only a post-Covid one. Other members have mentioned the words of the chair of the British Dental Association’s Scottish dental practice committee, which made me think, so I will quote them again. He said:

“the fundamentals of a broken system remain unchanged.

The Scottish Government have stuck with a drill and fill model designed in the 20th century.”

I know from what we have heard from the dental profession that it tried to help the Scottish Government to get this right. David Torrance, who is in the back row of the chamber, probably needs to listen to the dentists themselves, who say that there have been no changes to the model of care and that, despite recent changes in the payment system, NHS dentistry remains in dire straits, with a two-tier system becoming an increasing reality for patients. It feels like sticking plasters and will not cut it. That is what we are hearing from the dentists and the dentist professions.

I want to mention the oral cancer statistics that Willie Rennie gave, which are important facts that show why we must resolve the issue. I am running out of time, but I want to say that Claire Baker gave us excellent statistics that the members on the Government front benches should really look at. There is evidence from the COVID-19 Recovery Committee that private dentistry is not experiencing the same exit issues as NHS dentists. That is an important part of the inequalities that are happening.

I am pleased to close on behalf of Scottish Labour and I thank the Liberal Democrats for bringing the debate forward during their debating time. To reflect on the previous speech, by Keith Brown, a key point is that we have such a short time to speak because it is always the Opposition parties that have to bring such debates to Parliament. I would welcome it if Keith Brown put pressure on the front benchers to use Government time in the chamber to talk about such issues, which I agree that we should talk about.

I think that members know that I appreciate the concerning impacts of Brexit and the Tory Governments that we have had. I have said that many times in the chamber, and I do not shy away from doing that. However, it is fair for Opposition parties to come to the chamber to say that patients and staff are getting fed up with the SNP deflecting blame and deflecting from taking any responsibility for how poorly things are going in the NHS for staff and patients. To be honest, it is a key responsibility of back benchers to put pressure on front benchers to talk about and take responsibility for such things.

The direction of travel regarding access to primary care is undoubtedly the wrong one, which is piling pressure on parts of the health service that could do without it, as Alex Cole-Hamilton said when moving his motion. Let us be clear—it is honest to say that the target to deliver 800 new GPs is not being met. Sandesh Gulhane gave the evidence for that. Waiting lists are dangerously long, with many people waiting in pain. In primary care, people sometimes cannot even get to speak to a GP. It is fair for Opposition parties to bring such issues to the chamber.

Mental health appointments for children and, in particular, for adolescents are still extremely hard to come by. My colleague Paul Sweeney outlined that the promise on that has more or less been abandoned. We must make those points in the chamber.

We are coming at the issue from different directions. I think that I have been fair in my assessment of where we are. The Scottish Government has a massive budget for the NHS and has lots of staff to manage and support, so it must take some responsibility for that.

Beatrice Wishart put it well when she said:

“The problems did not start yesterday”.

She gave a fair reflection of what has happened over many years, before Brexit and Covid. We need to be honest about that.

I see that my speaking time is running out. The cabinet secretary mentioned recruitment and retention and spoke about physiotherapists. We require physiotherapists in my region, but responsibility for our inability to recruit people to physiotherapy courses, in order to gain more physiotherapists far into the future, lies at the door of the Scottish Government. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has been trying to speak to the Government about how we recruit and retain more physiotherapists.

Scottish Labour will support the motion, and we hope that members will support our amendment.

I just want to quickly thank the panel for coming along. I mentioned to the previous panel the hope that there was for self-directed support when it was put in place, but I think that you have already answered that question by saying that it has just not reached its full potential.

I suppose that what I have, then, is not so much a question as a request for some homework. What would be the one thing that you think that we should tackle to try to move things on to the next step towards delivery?

Do you want to add anything, Julia?

Great. That was very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you.

There was a great hope when self-directed support came in, but it is probably not doing what we hoped it might do for people. Your opening statements were very helpful, but I want to confirm that you said that the committee needs to look at training social workers with a full understanding of the potential for SDS. The pressures in the sector are a major reason why it cannot be delivered in the way that everybody here would want and the relationship between resources that are required for the assessed need and what we can provide is a real problem in the sector.

Is that a reasonable summary of things that we should look at? Are there any other major issues that we should pick out to tackle in order to ensure that SDS can move forward?

The cabinet secretary knows that I am no fan of the Tory Government at Westminster, but it is fair to say that, after 17 years of the Scottish National Party Government being in power, patients and staff alike are starting to get fed up with it deflecting blame and responsibility.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran has already purchased the Carrick Glen site, which will now lie unused. All the while, patients in that health board area are suffering on long waiting lists and have less provision close to home because of long-term underfunding. Will the cabinet secretary set out a timescale for Parliament to get the critical delivery of Ayr national treatment centre back on track, or will the people of Ayrshire just have to record this as yet another example of the SNP saying one thing and doing another? They need a timeframe.