Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Jenni Minto for bringing her important motion to the chamber for debate. She gave a lovely speech.

The debate allows us to consider and connect two important elements: the life-saving technology that we are lucky to have available to us and the community that brings it to our doors to ensure that, whenever possible, lives are saved.

We have heard a bit about cardiac arrest from members who have spoken before me. Sudden cardiac arrest occurs suddenly and often without warning. It is the abrupt loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. We need to understand and remind ourselves that death occurs within minutes if the victim does not receive treatment. Therefore, it is important that we raise understanding and awareness of the condition. Debating in the Scottish Parliament can be a step towards raising that awareness but, as members know, we must go further in our campaigns after the debate.

Figures that we have heard reveal that, every year, more than 3,000 people in Scotland experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The British Heart Foundation’s figures show that only one victim in 10 survives. However, crucially, the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest jumps from 6 per cent to 74 per cent if the casualty is in a shockable rhythm and a defibrillator is deployed within three minutes. That statistic shows clearly why it is important, as the motion states, to have accessible community defibrillators that are well maintained and easily available to every community.

If we are to reduce deaths from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, it is important that people know how to use the defibrillators. It is important that we train people to use them and that they feel confident in using them. Understanding that, with quick decisive action, we can save a life gives us all great purpose to do more. Access to defibrillators is vital to saving lives. I say to Jenni Minto that I would happily support any of the campaigns that she advances from the debate.

I also pay tribute to the communities that fundraise for and maintain defibrillators, which are life-saving pieces of equipment. In my community of Mauchline, a well thought out strategy has, following some fantastic fundraising, resulted in a community defibrillator being based at the centre of the village, with another due to be installed in another part of the village. The Mauchline Community Association, which is based at Centre Stane, has implemented a plan that includes good maintenance, ensuring that there is a high level of local understanding about how to access and use the equipment and registering it with the Circuit. Those measures are to be commended in any community and I am proud of the efforts in my village.

As I mentioned, my local defibrillator is registered with the Circuit, the national defibrillator network. The network provides a national overview of where defibrillators can be found and connects to the NHS ambulance services throughout the United Kingdom. That ensures that, in the crucial moments after a cardiac arrest, the defibrillators can be accessed quickly to help to save lives. At the moment, many defibrillators are never used because emergency services do not know where they are. That can cost lives and it is why it is important that the Circuit’s infrastructure is available.

I reaffirm a key point that I have made in previous debates: inequalities in health and healthcare cannot be ignored. It is no different in this instance. People from more deprived areas in Scotland are almost twice as likely to have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and are 60 per cent less likely to survive to leave hospital than those from less-deprived areas. We must not forget those factors when planning for the future. It is crucial that the Government addresses inequality as a matter of urgency before it is too late for more people. Key to that is tackling the root causes of health inequality.

I again acknowledge the importance of the motion and commend the work of the volunteers and organisations that raise awareness of the issue. I thank members for contributing to this important debate.

I welcome the commitment to incorporate into law the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is a measurable and moral step that we must take together as a country, and I thank Fulton MacGregor for bringing the debate to the chamber. However, no one will be surprised to hear me say that we can always do a lot more. I would like to focus on some tangible rights that we should be pursuing at home, but first I must briefly reflect on a broader concern.

I would love to see human rights become a universal standard with which we can build a better world—however, in reality, that is far from happening. We need only cast our memories back to a fortnight ago, when 27 people drowned in the English Channel trying to reach our shores. Far too many people have already forgotten about that news story—it has been pushed aside by the daily churn of the 24-hour news cycle.

What happened to the rights of those 27 people? Did they disappear when they left home for a better life? The situation is truly shameful, and we must keep their story in the spotlight. Their fate does not surprise me, however, given that a Tory Government at Westminster thinks that it is funny to ignore its own rules and to laugh at Covid restrictions while people die. We can only imagine its lack of concern for people beyond our borders. Their story must remain in the spotlight.

To return to matters at home, I do not need to tell my fellow MSPs that children in schools are too hungry to concentrate, and that parents are not eating meals so that their children can be fed. In 2019, 31 per cent of single-parent households in Scotland reported being food insecure. One in 10 people living in the UK is, or is at risk of being, malnourished.

Labour-led councils in North Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire have taken positive steps towards addressing hunger during school holidays, with the club 365 and summer voucher schemes. I am sure that all members welcome those steps, but the Scottish Government has to do more and to be more radical in ensuring that they are rolled out across Scotland.

The fact that we need those schemes confirms the desperate need for a right to food, which is not currently enshrined in Scots law. Fortunately, thanks to my colleagues Rhoda Grant and, previously, Elaine Smith, we will soon have the opportunity, here at home, to secure that right. I ask that all members—particularly Government backbenchers—support that at the first opportunity.

Linked to that, as part of a wider concern about health, the UNCRC states that children should have the right to leisure, play and culture, and that Governments must play an active role in ensuring that that happens. How are we doing in Scotland? A report commissioned by the Observatory for Sport in Scotland highlighted that

“there is evidence of decreasing participation rates in sport outside school lessons and high levels of drop-out by girls as they move into their teenage years.”

We also know that, between 2014 and 2018, the average charges per hour increased for five-a-side football, badminton, squash, table tennis, golf, and swimming for kids. Furthermore, participation in physical activity and sport among those living in the most deprived areas is considerably lower than in the least deprived areas. That division will last past childhood, and it accounts in part for increased mortality at all stages of life. The Scottish Government must do more if it seeks to claim that it is taking an active part in realising children’s right to leisure, play and culture.

It is positive that the Scottish Government appears keen to adopt the UNCRC into Scots law, but it is equally concerning that hunger is on the rise and that the cost of sport in Scotland is unaffordable and getting worse. If we recognise the importance of securing formal rights that will push us forward as a country and give the next generation a platform from which it can flourish, we can begin to change that trajectory. The UNCRC is a welcome start but, as I often say in the chamber, we have plenty more to do.

I again thank Fulton MacGregor for bringing the debate to the chamber.

As the convener said, last night we heard from several people with lived experience and it was striking that, although we are all affected by the effects of Covid-19, for the mothers and fathers in this category there are some major things that we need to address right now and going forward. Does the panel have any advice on the return to services that seem very different across Scotland? What things might need to be put in place to support this group of people in the next year or so?

I welcome the minister’s statement. It is positive to see progress on the issue. That progress has been led by Ralph Roberts, who is the chief executive of NHS Borders, in my region. I thank him and the review team for their work, alongside the hard work of local campaign groups that have pushed the issue forward.

Despite the progress that was detailed in the statement, I ask the minister whether he can offer some clarity on what will be done to solve the underlying issues, which—as in many other parts of the country—arise from a lack of staff. There are 365 whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies in NHS Highland and 465 such vacancies in NHS Grampian. On top of that, there is a known lack of paediatricians. The minister’s statement barely addressed that issue. What can be done about that?

I thank Paul McLennan for securing this additional debate, which allows us once again to raise the important issue of gender-based violence in the week of international human rights day and to mark the 30th anniversary of the 16 days of activism. I share the sentiment that has been expressed in the debate, and I want to add to other members’ voices.

In 2021, violence against women is, sadly, not only still a major concern; it appears to be getting worse in Scotland and around the world. If anyone imagines that it has become a thing of the past, they are sorely mistaken.

As a new member who has been offered the opportunity to contribute to this debate, I see that Paul McLennan has become a champion of the issue and has called on men to take their responsibility in society seriously. I thank him, and in the last debate on this issue I thanked Jim Fairlie for raising the issue of the number of men in attendance in the chamber. I also thank them for the call to action in reminding all male MSPs to join the debate tonight and other debates.

In making this speech, I reflected on the fact that the motion marks 30 years of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. Although that work is to be commended as absolutely essential, it should spur members on to realise that we have a responsibility to work hard, to make decisions, to focus on action, not rhetoric, and to ensure that we do not have to make the same remarks in years to come.

The motion quite rightly seeks to acknowledge and praise services that are devoted to supporting the elimination of violence against women. It is genuinely sad that the campaign for 16 days of activism is in its 30th year, but we know that the violence continues and that accountability is severely lacking.

When I made my first speech at the start of the 16 days of activism against violence against women, we knew that, in the UK this year, at least 126 women had been killed by a man, or a man was the principal suspect in their death. Since then, we know of other women who have been subjected to violence and women who have, sadly, lost their lives. How can we look at those numbers and think that there is not a serious problem in our society with the way in which men view and treat women? Whether we are talking about domestic violence, sexual harassment or, indeed, rampant misogyny, women continue to be the target of the terrible behaviours and aggression of far too many men. If we cannot understand how serious that is today and address its root cause, we do not deserve to be standing in this chamber.

Members across the chamber have raised many important issues in many debates in the Parliament. We need many vital changes in our society, from calling out language and misogyny to changes to the justice system. I have often wondered whether the statistics would be the same if so many men said that they had fallen victim.

My previous contribution focused on the establishment of institutions that feel at times that they are above the issue. I want to mention that again. Each woman who is the victim of violence must be treated equally and fairly by an establishment that understands, or at least seeks to begin to understand, what they have gone through. That begins with accepting that gender-based violence is a serious problem that we do not have under control. It requires more direct engagement with grass-roots organisations and health and recovery charities, and institutions opening their eyes and ears to what is going on.

We need to think about the sort of attitudes to which we are exposing young men, which encourage a culture of entitlement rather than one of respect. If we can approach the problem as a societal issue that is mixed in with the way in which men think that it is acceptable to behave, we can begin to tackle it. Until then, we will just have more talk and the issue will not be taken seriously enough. If we want to make a change, we have to do something about it.

I thank all the members who have attended this important debate.

At the heart of this issue are patients and their families who have suffered a serious injustice the like of which few of us can even fathom. On top of that, we have hard-working NHS staff whose reputations are being damaged by the failure of authorities to address a life-threatening problem for which no one has been held accountable.

The focus of everything that I am about to say is concern for the welfare and professionalism of both of those groups. That is, after all, our primary responsibility as elected representatives of the people, and I hope that that will be central to any reporting surrounding the story.

Week after week in this chamber, we naturally end up focusing a great deal of time on incompetence and poor governance, but, for me and for Scottish Labour, the central concern should always be the effects on people’s everyday lives.

In this case, at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, we can see as plain as day that the lives of the people affected have been a secondary consideration. Waterborne infections at the hospital, the extent of which we still do not fully understand, have been a factor in the deaths of a number of people, including children. That is a number of families who will be spending Christmas, and every Christmas after that, without the people closest to them. I am concerned that that is not being fully understood by the Government. Those deaths may have been totally avoidable, yet no one has been properly held to account. That is gross negligence and someone has to answer for it.

We are now at a point where senior clinicians feel that they have no choice but to speak out, despite a culture of bullying that we hear exists within the health board. Having worked in the NHS, I find that truly shocking. I know for a fact that clinicians would take that step only if they felt that all avenues of appeal and justice had been exhausted. I applaud the staff for speaking out and encourage the Government to listen to their pleas, not to the claims of the health board’s senior management.

There are a few simple questions that must be answered. Why are the leaders of the health board still in post? Why are the members of the oversight board still in post? Why have emergency powers not been used to take control of the hospital and get a grip of the situation? Those are basic things that the public demand of a Government, and they are not being done, for reasons that I cannot grasp. Given the justified scrutiny of all Governments’ handling of public health during Covid, it seems to me that we cannot for a second allow public trust in our NHS to be damaged. Why, then, is Scottish Labour forced to call for a change at the top of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde while the Government sits on its hands?

Let us be clear: it gives none of us any pleasure to say that the senior management of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has failed and should step down, but it should take responsibility for the situation and step down immediately. If it will not do so, it should be removed and we should move to stage 5 of the performance escalation framework without delay. That is what my party is calling for. It is right and it is honest. In all honesty, it is the very least that should be done.

We need to decide whether we are on the side of the families, who are righteously furious, and the amazing staff, who are being kept quiet, or whether the primary interest of the out-of-touch managers in the Government is in laundering their reputations. Those who have presided over the mess cannot be allowed to stay in control. The motion must be supported by every member in the chamber.

I thank all the witnesses. There is so much that we could pick up on.

Because of the time, I will just pick up on the notion that we need to go from talk to action. That is very clear—we need to get things done. Are there good examples that we should be looking at in other countries? We know that the evidence is there; it is clear what we need to do. Are there good examples of countries that have taken action and are starting to see outcomes? That question is for David or Kim.

In the wake of the developing situation surrounding the omicron variant, how many individuals in residential rehabilitation have been double vaccinated? How many residents in rehabilitation centres have adequate testing and vaccination services available to them? What is being put in place to ensure that residents get the booster in good time?

In closing for Scottish Labour, I share the sentiment that has been expressed in the debate and I add my voice to other members’ voices.

Not only is violence against women sadly still a major concern in 2021, but it appears to be getting worse in Scotland and around the world. If anyone imagines that it is becoming a thing of the past, they are sorely mistaken. The cabinet secretary and Meghan Gallacher opened by mentioning the shocking statistics, from the UK and around the world, and others across the chamber emphasised them. This is a pandemic.

We know that in the UK this year at least 126 women have been killed by men, or that a man is the principal suspect in their death. How can we look at those numbers and think that there is not a serious problem in our society with the way in which men view and treat women? Whether it is domestic violence, sexual harassment or rampant misogyny, women continue to be the target of far too many men’s terrible behaviour and aggression. I agree with Maggie Chapman that if we cannot understand how serious that is and address the root cause, we do not deserve to be standing here. A big step towards addressing that root cause is exposing those parts of our society that apologise for and normalise the violence. Many of them are key parts of our establishment and seem to think that they are immune to the problem. Michelle Thomson, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Pauline McNeill and Mercedes Villalba talked about that.

There could not be any greater example of the dangers that women face across the UK than the terrible murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, who used his authority to subdue and kidnap her. In the wake of that event, women naturally felt particularly vulnerable and angry. Yet at a peaceful vigil to remember Sarah and to protest the police’s failings in London, officers pinned down and arrested many protesters under Covid regulations. To even consider that a normal or rational thing to do is evidence of stone age thinking by supposed pillars of our society. It was done by the very service that is there to protect us, to women who were responding to one of the police’s own killing a young woman. Who has been held responsible? The Metropolitan Police commissioner continues to be in post, despite those events, while some of the women at the protest have been made out to be criminals. How am I supposed to tell young people in my region—or, indeed, my own daughter—that this is a safe country for women, when that is the headline news and that is the police response? Something needs to change, and it needs to change quickly.

Often the institutional response to what I and many other women regularly see is minimal, to say the least. We have heard from others that Rape Crisis Scotland has highlighted how Police Scotland’s responses to rape allegations are riddled with poor communications, outdated attitudes, and lengthy and unclear proceedings that leave survivors feeling isolated and anxious. Is it any wonder that so few women come forward and report those crimes?

Another issue mentioned during the debate, which is part of the same problem, is the fact that women now feel that they have to boycott clubs and bars up and down the country in response to serious concerns about increases in drink spiking. For years, those concerns have been met only with public relations campaigns and awareness-raising approaches, but how many people are convicted of spiking drinks, or of similar activities, in Scotland—a charge known as “drugging”? Over the past three years, where there is data available, the answer is that no one has been charged, so either all those women are making up the problem or the crime is not being detected at all. If that many men were saying that they had fallen victim to spiking, I wonder whether the statistics would be the same.

Every woman who is a victim of violence must be treated equally and fairly by an establishment that understands, or at least seeks to begin to understand, what they have gone through. That begins with accepting that it is a serious problem that we do not have under control. It means direct engagement with grassroots organisations, health and recovery charities and, as Pam Gosal rightly said, right across, and sensitive to, all our communities. It requires institutions such as the police to open their eyes and ears to what is going on.

I thank Jim Fairlie for his comments about men joining in with the debate and I thank Neil Gray, Jim Fairlie and Alexander Stewart for their excellent and thoroughly worthwhile contributions. We needed to hear them. We need to deal with the sorts of attitudes that we expose young men to, and that encourage a culture of entitlement instead of one of respect—a point that was raised by the cabinet secretary. If we can approach the problem as both a criminal justice issue, and as a societal issue that is mixed in with the way in which some men think it is acceptable to behave, we can begin to tackle it. Until then, it will just be more PR stunts and not enough serious change.

I finish by repeating what Pauline McNeill said: if we want things to change, we need to be brave. All of us need to be brave.

I thank David Torrance for bringing the topic to the chamber for debate. On behalf of Scottish Labour, I recognise mouth cancer action month and acknowledge the crucial work of the Mouth Cancer Foundation and Oral Health Foundation in raising awareness of mouth cancer.

The NHS advises that we cannot be certain what triggers the DNA changes that lead to mouth cancer but makes it clear that smoking and alcohol consumption are the leading causes of the disease in the United Kingdom. That highlights a further need to reinforce messaging regarding smoking and alcohol intake.

I appreciate the task that is ahead of us but, too many times, we discuss in the chamber the impact of conditions and life-threatening diseases that have avoidable causes. We must match our words with definitive action. There are clear links between the intake of the harmful products that I mentioned and life-threatening illness. We must go further in our efforts to reduce that impact.

I welcome the Scottish Government’s plan to create a smoke-free generation by 2034 but we must act with greater purpose and, indeed, urgency to address the prevalence of smoking, particularly in deprived areas, where it is at its highest. Only by doing so will we start to weaken the link between deprivation and serious ill health or, in fact, early death.

In short, much more has to be done to address Scotland’s significant health inequalities. I will continue to raise that point in the chamber, as I am sure members can imagine. I hope that the minister appreciates—I know that she does—that the need for action is urgent because some communities, including ones that I represent in South Scotland, are disproportionately impacted by those factors.

Moreover, a significant problem that we face when seeking to raise awareness of conditions and illnesses such as mouth cancer is a lack of knowledge surrounding the early symptoms and when to seek medical attention. Emma Harper raised that. The NHS advises that the most common symptoms of mouth cancer are:

“sore mouth ulcers that do not heal within several weeks ... unexplained, persistent lumps in the mouth that do not go away”

and

“unexplained, persistent lumps in the lymph glands in the neck that do not go away”.

It is crucial that we highlight those symptoms in the Parliament. I have repeated them so that people are aware of them because, if they are caught early, a complete cure is possible. According to some research, that can be done using surgery alone in nine out of 10 cases of mouth cancer.

The importance of early detection cannot be overstated. It can increase the chances of survival by 50 per cent to 90 per cent. That is why it is crucial that any changes to an individual’s mouth are reported to a dentist or doctor if they remain for longer than three weeks.

We must commend the work of the Mouth Cancer Foundation and other organisations but, more importantly, we must act with purpose to spread their message further and ensure that the symptoms of cancer—of which there are more than 8,000 new cases a year in the UK—are well known and prominent throughout the country.

I reaffirm a key point that I have made in previous debates and that other members have made: despite being under pressure and strain, and despite the difficulties that the pandemic has imposed on it, the NHS is still functioning and people should make contact with their general practitioner and dentist whenever they feel that they need to. The reduction in the early detection of cancers has been one of the most devastating impacts of the pandemic and, as a result, lives will be lost. However, as we hope to turn a corner and continue our progress, it is crucial not only that the Government addresses the urgent cancer backlogs but that people feel that they can come forward.

I thank members for participating in the debate and commend the work of mouth cancer action month.