Seòmar agus comataidhean

As we can see from the contributions so far, the topic of the debate is very important to the public. It is at the forefront of the public’s concerns month after month, year after year. There is a reason for that, which is that people truly value our NHS and want it to succeed. They understand that it is our most valuable asset, as a country, and that if the NHS is running well, the country is on the right track.

That is why my party, and I am sure many members in the chamber and people in our communities, cannot understand why, when we are going into a winter that will undoubtedly see a significant increase in fuel poverty and malnutrition, as well as increased concerns about spiralling mental health due to the state of the economy, we are not having a serious rethink of the NHS recovery plan here in Scotland.

The fact is, that the SNP-Green Government has shown itself to be wholly incapable of taking responsibility for the scale of the crisis that is engulfing our health and social care service. I want to speak to SNP back benchers as well. It is our responsibility to scrutinise what is being done here in Scotland by the Scottish Government. We are discussing a serious point that has to be taken on board. No matter what the problem is, there is always an excuse from the Government. All the while, patients and staff want solutions and a sense of on-going progress.

To conclude, I say that we need solutions, and we need them now. Only if we are serious will we get the necessary things done to make sure that staff and patients have a better-performing NHS in Scotland.

I will tell the member how that can be mitigated: it can be done by voting Labour at the next general election.

When visiting hospitals in my region, I have seen hard-working people struggling to do an impossible task with too few staff, fewer resources and constant pressure. With that, and the worst cancer waiting times on record, how can we in this Parliament, and as a people, say that what we are achieving is good enough? It is time to take responsibility. I ask the Government, please, to take responsibility, and I ask the Government back benchers to put some pressure on the front bench to take responsibility. When we take responsibility, we can have a serious discussion about how we help to take away the pressures on the NHS. I am one of the first in this chamber to take on the Tories and debate what we need to do about the Tory Government.

In the short time that I have, I would like to highlight the unacceptable length of waiting times in women’s health services. Women are being forced to wait for dangerously long periods for gynaecological treatment. The data for April to June this year, which was published yesterday, highlights that only just over half of eligible referrals for cervical cancer started treatment within 62 days. That means that nearly half of those who were eligible did not start cancer treatment within two months. That is a shocking statistic and is a key breach of the Government’s pledges.

Those are serious issues that cannot be left for so long without serious risk to life and long-term health, yet it sometimes seems that, because the issues relate to women’s health, they are more likely to take a back seat. What makes me say that? After repeated promises in the chamber to have a women’s health champion, and despite being told more than once in the chamber that an appointment would be made in the summer, we are now approaching October and we still have no women’s health champion.

I say to the Government, to the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport, and to the First Minister that they must meet their commitment to Scotland’s women and get this done.

It is fair to say that we have discussed delayed discharges over many years, and we acknowledge that things continue to be bad and are possibly worse than they were before. The witnesses on the previous panel and the current one have mentioned how important delayed discharge is in resolving some of the issues.

You have talked about recruitment of staff, staff pay, intermediate beds, the role that AHPs can have and, of course, the pay, terms and conditions and recruitment of social care staff. What support do you need from the Scottish Government to move forward? There is a lot of urgency, but it does not always feel as though we are moving forward at pace with any of the ideas from you and the staff about Government support.

That is very helpful. Is enough urgency being placed on that to get it through quickly enough? That is the key.

I want to be clear that I accept that the panel members want things to work and that they are working hard to get this in. However, I want to talk a wee bit about the reality that we observe and what we see in our in-boxes from patients who have waited on trolleys and have found that the staff work 100 per cent and above and beyond, but are still finding it difficult. Staff trade unions also tell us how much stress staff are under in relation to beds. The professional organisations tell us that, too.

I visited a local hospital at 9 o’clock on a Friday morning. There were three ambulances waiting to unload, every accident and emergency bay had had a patient in it for more than 24 hours, and the bed capacity was basically non-existent. I was told by staff and managers—everybody—that that situation was not unusual.

We need to be realistic about where we are, and we need to talk about whether there is enough support from the Government to help health boards. Will we have enough bed space this winter? The issue is not just bed space: I have been advised that the ratio of bed space to staffing is not at the level that we need even before we fill the beds—they are constantly getting staff in again and again.

I appreciate that you want things to work, but how realistic is it that things will be in a good space this winter?

Recent shocking figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service highlight a shortfall of almost 1,000 in the number of students who are currently accepted in nursing and midwifery courses in Scotland, compared with the Government’s own recommended intake for 2022-23.

In my South Scotland region last week, I saw at first hand the impact that shortages are having on Ayrshire’s hospitals and the wellbeing of their staff. We need a clear plan for making nursing and midwifery an appealing career for young people to address those figures, which are being described as “extremely worrying” for nursing.

I ask the First Minister: when will her Government stop patting itself on the back, realise the scale of this recruitment problem and outline in detail the actions that it will take to address it?

I thank Alexander Stewart for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is right that we recognise the vital contribution that out-of-hours GP services make to healthcare provision across Scotland. It is also right that we stress how important it is for all regions of NHS Scotland, supported by the Scottish Government, to ensure that out-of-hours GP services not only continue to operate but continue to provide the highest levels of care. If members are absolutely honest and if they look at their inboxes, they will know that constituents are telling us that there is strain on GP services and GP out-of-hours services.

However, it is important to note the excellent work of our NHS staff in hospitals, primary care settings and the community. The work that they do always goes above and beyond expectation, particularly in recent times when people have needed that bit of extra help. As mentioned in the motion, the contribution of healthcare professionals, support staff, drivers and others must not be understated.

Primary care out-of-hours services are now embedded as a fundamental part of our healthcare provision in Scotland. Many of us remember our local GPs providing 24-hour cover. A variety of models were used but, for people like me who lived in a rural area, their own GP or GP practice staff attended if they called out a GP overnight. Of course, since then, there has been a wide variety of changes, with out-of-hours services coming under the control of the health boards in 2004. As we have heard from other members, that was in large part because of the increasing demand for services out of hours, with which the traditional models of provision could not cope.

However, it is important that we learn from the past. In my region, in Mauchline and Catrine, where I live, GP services such as Ballochmyle medical practice face significant challenges. A number of residents have contacted me who are waiting significant lengths of time for an appointment, who face challenges with the administration of prescriptions and lengthy telephone queues when they phone up, or who cannot get an appointment with a GP. Residents are finding it difficult to balance their lives with getting a GP appointment.

The pressure on day-to-day GP services is severe. Despite the best efforts of our workforce, they clearly need to be more supported. We must ensure that that pressure does not spill over further into out-of-hours services, on which there is now a significant reliance to get some treatments. I repeat that we cannot forget the lessons of the past. We must ensure that there are sufficient resources to meet demand and that patients can access high-quality care in GP and out-of-hours GP services.

In the short time that I have left, I will focus on the work and commitment of all the staff groups that are under enormous pressure, which cannot be overstated. During the summer, I visited a number of services and staff groups across my South Scotland region who work in a variety of settings in the NHS. It is not an exaggeration to say that NHS staff across the board, from nursing staff, porters, caterers and cleaners to those working in GP practices, are exhausted and demoralised and feel undervalued by the current Government and the structures that are in place. Staff need a proper plan for pay, recruitment and wellbeing provision, and that includes those working in out-of-hours services. If the Government truly values our NHS and NHS staff, it will act.

In conclusion, I once again thank all those who contribute to the delivery of our out-of-hours GP services in my region of South Scotland and beyond. The work that they do is invaluable to ensure that people’s medical needs are met in hours when others are perhaps not at work. I thank the member for bringing the debate to the chamber.

I have a quick question for Leigh Johnston. Recently, it has been mentioned to me that one of our responses to Covid in hospitals was to increase bed capacity—which is understandable—and that that has continued. Some health boards are concerned that the staffing issues were never addressed. There are staffing issues to do with recruitment, and the full-time equivalent posts are simply not there. It was mentioned to me that staffing was running at around 70 per cent of the funding allocation. Is that something that you have picked up on across the board?

If I wanted to look at bed capacity before and after Covid, where would be the best place to look at that information and the staffing levels around that?