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The majority of health boards have those pathways in place now. Those that do not are carrying out the work at the moment and I would expect those pathways to be in place this year. The funding has been made available for them this year as part of the £10 million programme so there is no reason for the boards not to achieve that. We will continue to monitor their progress.

Going back to my earlier point, I make it clear that the clinical advice not just at a Scottish and UK levels but at the global level is that Covid-19 should now be managed as a seasonal infection and in the way that we manage other seasonal infections such as flu, because the level of vaccinations that have now been provided to the population gives us much greater protection. Our intention is to continue to manage Covid-19 on that basis.

If the clinical advice changes at some point and we have to take further action, we will respond to that. However, the present advice is that we should continue to manage things as we are managing them and in the way that we manage other seasonal infections.

The responsibility for the delivery of primary care within the local area, and the contract, is directly with the health board. I would expect the local community to engage with the health board, and the health board to engage with them, around how they are addressing the issue of concern around ensuring adequate general practice services in their area. I would expect the health board to be proactive in doing that. If it is not and there is a need for it to do so, I would be more than happy to ensure that it engages with the community in Braemar. It is important that there is a level of local understanding of the most appropriate way to deliver services locally in the primary care setting.

As I said earlier, we are taking forward a programme of work to tackle the backlog and waiting lists, but we can see that significant progress has been made across a range of specialities, and we are working with boards to support and sustain that.

Our healthcare system is experiencing challenges with the recruitment of staff in the same way that the health system across the UK is experiencing real difficulties. Some specialities are not just causing difficulties for the UK; there are global challenges because of the lack of specialists in those areas. However, we are taking things forward. For example, the fill rate in our speciality recruitment programme is at 93 per cent, which is a higher fill rate at this point of the cycle than we have ever been at previously. We have another fill rate to go, and it will be finalised in November, so we are making very good progress towards being an attractive location for clinicians to come for training and support.

Our NHS, however, will experience very significant challenges this winter. What are we doing to address that? We are expanding things such as the hospital at home service and see-and-treat programmes with the Scottish Ambulance Service. We are working closely with our health boards on the preparations that they are putting in place for their A and E departments, which often feel the brunt of these challenges.

We started our winter planning programme earlier than ever before. One of the first pieces of work I commissioned when I took over the portfolio was our winter programme, given the very challenging winter that we went through last year. We have taken forward that planning jointly with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and, just a few weeks ago, we had a winter summit that brought together all the key stakeholders in health and social care from across the country with the decision makers to look at planning and managing some of the challenges that we will face in the course of the winter.

It will be a challenging time. I am not going to shy away from that fact and I am not going to kid on that it will not be difficult and that things will be perfect. However, we have brought forward the planning and done it in a joint way that we have never done before to try to mitigate some of the challenges that we face.

You will be aware that we were starting our Covid vaccination and flu vaccination programmes earlier, so some of that was already at an earlier stage than in other parts of the UK. As a result of the new Covid variant, we brought forward the Covid vaccination programme for those who are more vulnerable, but we were always one of the first parts of the UK to move forward with the winter vaccination programme; I got my flu vaccine just yesterday. Anyone here who intends to get the flu vaccine or the Covid vaccine, please take up the offer that is being made.

We are doing what we can to plan for the winter and the challenges that inevitably will lie ahead. We are also trying to put in place programmes of work to deal with the large number of people who continue to wait extended periods for treatment, while we also deal at the same time with the recruitment challenges that are being experienced not just in Scotland but across the whole of the UK, particularly in certain specialities. So far we have made good progress, but we still have to do a lot more.

I am not familiar with the amendments that you are referring to, but I am more than happy to have a look at them and to consider how they will work in relation to safe staffing levels.

Do you want to say something about that, Ms Minto?

No single action alone would help to address issues around population shift and make our rural and island communities attractive for people to live and work; rather, a range of actions will have to be taken. You will be aware, for instance, of actions that have been taken in some rural areas on housing, as well of measures that we are planning to take to free up housing capacity in our rural and island areas. There is a combination of factors to consider, including transport infrastructure, housing, digital infrastructure, good-quality and sustainable health services, access to education and so on. They all play key roles in helping to make our rural and island communities attractive places for people to live and stay in. They cut across all Government portfolios, and some of the work that we are taking forward in Government is on trying to ensure that we take a consistent approach to delivering them and that we are prioritising them.

I am not sure; I would have to check for you. I will be happy to come back to you once we have checked whether we are doing any work on that.

Ideally, we would be in the position of trying to address as much of the backlog as possible to reduce the risk of its becoming a safety issue for patients or staff in a building, but the challenge that we face is that capital budgets neither provide for that nor allow us to achieve it. Boards work in a dynamic environment in which they address maintenance backlogs on the basis of priority, and some of that will relate to clinical safety purposes. They will continue to work on that basis.

Alongside the need to provide new facilities and deal with the maintenance aspect, there is huge pressure on our capital budgets. I expect boards to work dynamically to identify the critical elements that have to be taken forward and ensure that matters are being addressed efficiently and effectively so that they do not interrupt clinical services or cause safety issues. We continue to try to invest in our estate as we go forward, both in maintenance and in new facilities where necessary.

Good morning, convener, and thank you for inviting me to meet the committee this morning. This is my first appearance at the committee since I was appointed as Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care. I welcome the opportunity to engage with the committee, and I look forward to discussing a range of vital issues in the weeks and months ahead, as recovery and renewal of the NHS and social care services continue.

I also thank the NHS boards for continuing to provide information to the committee, which has been taking evidence about their performance in recent weeks.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet representatives of all health boards to discuss matters of importance to local people. It is my strong belief that the Scottish Government should not only fund, but should empower and enable boards to make the decisions that they feel are most appropriate to their localities and areas.

We acknowledge the pressures that are felt by boards across the country as we all continue to deal with the aftermath of the biggest shock that the NHS system has felt since its establishment some 75 years ago. We continue to prioritise investment in front-line services. We have provided an increase of some £730 million for NHS boards through the 2023-24 budget and an additional £200 million in-year support above initial plans to support the financial sustainability of NHS boards. That means that no board is more than 0.6 per cent from NHS Scotland resource allocation committee parity.

In addition, we continue to provide constant support and guidance to NHS boards to ensure that they are doing everything that they can do to provide the best possible care for people in their localities. Our new prospectus for the year ahead demonstrates our collaboration, with a key part of our plan to deliver year-on-year reductions in waiting lists being to deliver additional capacity through our national treatment centres in NHS Highland, NHS Fife, NHS Forth Valley and NHS Golden Jubilee National Hospital.

Another good example is the work that is being done to increase the workforce through hiring an additional 800 staff from overseas. That was helped by £8 million of funding in October last year. We set an ambitious target of recruiting some 750 additional nurses, midwives and allied health professionals from overseas; I am pleased that, due to the hard work of health boards, we have exceeded that target. That is the kind of joint working between central Government and local boards that I will hope will go from strength to strength, as we go forward.

I am happy to respond to questions.

Do you mean in terms of trying to reverse depopulation in rural and remote areas?