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Related to that issue, the chief executive of NHS Ayrshire and Arran said that one of the issues that affects discharge, interestingly enough, is power of attorney and families being able to grant and get that power. She said that that affects more than half of their discharge cases. Is that common throughout Scotland, and should we highlight that much more in order to encourage the public to embrace use of power of attorney?

On staffing and demand versus the ability to staff to meet demand, you mentioned clear difficulties. What more can we and the Government do to try to close that gap? We know that demand is increasing year on year, but we have difficulty in getting the right numbers of staff in health and social care to meet that demand. What are your recommendations for the Government on how it could help?

Do you find that patients are receptive to using digital technology if they think that it might let them be seen or heard a little quicker? Are they quite open to that, or would they still prefer a direct face-to-face model?

So, there would have been no difference.

The report says that the approval of the £77,000 for the Harvard training course was picked up by “the auditor”. Was that an external or an internal auditor?

I thought that I would mention that, because it was a positive side of what the chief executive described last week with regard to a range of indicators that are of interest to members.

Auditor General, I remember that your predecessors, Caroline Gardner and Bob Black, both said to the committee over several years that there was a need for service redesign and transformation. We know that demand on the NHS is going through the roof—it went through the roof during Covid, and it has not yet dissipated.

Have the recommendations for service redesign and transformation that you are urging the Government to embrace changed in any way since then? Is the model for service transformation that your predecessors envisaged the model that you are recommending now, given the huge change in demand in recent years?

That is what I was going to ask about. Is that model getting people out the door more quickly at the other end and back into the community or to where they are supposed to go? Is it succeeding in that regard?

Digital transformation can offer opportunities, as you also say in your report. Are there, throughout the system, blockages that e-health strategies, telehealth or any other way of embracing digital technology might help to unblock? Could those things help with queues that people face in relation to general practitioner contact or consultation services? Do you see opportunity in that and are we embracing enough of the opportunities to help us?

The Government has seen your comments on the issue. I hope and expect that they are being taken on board and will be built into the revised strategy.

I would think that a lot of the tech scaler stuff would sit in there.