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I think that it has to be spent in this financial year. Certainly, they have to begin the work on spending it in this financial year. Forgive me: I can get you absolute clarity on that post the committee meeting. In essence, the organisations are building on projects that they already have under way.

Obviously, those are individual employment issues. As Jackie Baillie will know, we took the approach to employment that the other nations across the UK took—Labour-run Wales, Conservative-run England and Northern Ireland—with the additional support that we could give to those who were suffering from long Covid. We extended that support beyond when the other countries in the UK decided to withdraw it.

We are talking about important employment issues. I know that various members’ bills are coming up, such as Mark Griffin’s member’s bill on industrial injuries. There have also been calls for long Covid to be described as a disability. Under the Equality Act 2010, it is the debilitating impact of a condition rather than the condition itself that has to be prescribed. Therefore, the effects of long Covid could mean that someone has a disability that would affect their ability to get certain benefits, including social security benefits.

I will continue to look at the issue. It is a challenge. Because employment law is reserved, we have to make sure that we understand the unique impacts of long Covid and the fact that, although there are some treatments for some symptoms, there are no treatments for others. At the same time, we have to make sure that employment law is applied consistently across conditions.

Ultimately, it is not for the Government, health secretaries or ministers to override clinical judgment. That has to be up to the individual clinician.

I get really upset when I hear that people have been dismissed. For me, that has echoes of the mesh survivors, whom we have all interacted with, who, in their own words, said that they were dismissed by clinicians time and time again. I am really concerned about that, which is why so much work has been done on educational tools for our front-line primary care workers—who, I suspect we all agree, do an incredible job under really difficult circumstances, especially given the effects of the pandemic—and the implementation support note.

I would be really disappointed if I was to hear of a recent example of someone being dismissed in the way that you describe. I do not know how recent Murdo Fraser’s example is or the one that you have given but, because of the amount of work that we have put in, I would be upset if there was a recent example of someone being dismissed by their GP. Dr Harden might want to come in if there is anything further to be said on that front.

We have been taking a lot of advice from GPs. For example, Dr Amy Small, who has given evidence to the committee, has attended some of the meetings that we have had on the issue.

The short answer to that is yes. We have already provided additional funding to Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, but I am very keen to see what more it can do. As you know, it is working on a unique digital pathway with NHS Lothian, and NHS Lothian wants to use its allocation of the £10 million funding for that work. I am very keen to see the evaluation of that and to make sure that we do not suffer from what I often call pilotitis—if the pathway is working well, let us make sure that we get it rolled out even further. I am keen to see how that particular programme in NHS Lothian is working.

Education is an area where we want to get better. I have met a number of young people who were suffering from long Covid—in fact, we had such a meeting a number of months ago just outside the Parliament. Some families told me that their school was excellent but others told me that that was not so much the case.

That is why it is important that I am having—as you can imagine—conversations with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. We are bringing in education officials, as well as fair work officials, to go back to Jackie Baillie’s question about employment. We are taking a cross-Government approach to that work, but it is fair to say that it is work in progress.

That is a good point, although we should still say that the Covid vaccination programme has been really successful compared with others. You are right that we can see where the uptake level is but, generally speaking, if we compare uptake with that for other vaccination programmes, we can say that we have done incredibly well. I thank the army of vaccinators that we have up and down the country for what they have done in that regard.

We need to do everything that you mentioned. It is not just about vaccination, although that is the game changer. Vaccination must be front and centre of our response to Covid and to not just reducing the number of people who contract it but lessening its effects as best we can.

There is also continued work to do on ventilation in educational and work settings. The messaging is important, too. I referred to our Covid sense campaign, which reminds people about the measures that they can take.

We need to do all those things. There is no single answer.

We are still involved in work around surveillance—we continue to be vigilant, should there be any other mutations or variants of Covid. We continue to work on a four-nations basis in that regard, and I know that the UK will continue to work internationally with global partners on that.

There is not one answer to the question; there are multiple things that we have to do. We will keep up the regular drumbeat of campaigning, as well, of course, as the next programme of vaccination, on which we continue to take the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

We are getting the balance on that. We will continue to work on a four-nations basis with the UK Government on the various surveillance measures that we have. Waste water sampling is effective. It gives us real-time data in a way that other approaches do not necessarily do, so we will continue to ensure that we have that.

It is also fair to say that we are getting to the transition phase. We had the height of the pandemic and we are now going from pandemic to endemic. As we do that, we will end up treating Covid in the way that we treat other viral infections. Surveillance will be an important part of that transitional phase, as it is for other viral infections.

That is a very fair question. Some areas have that service. In the Highland service, which I have talked about, there have been 100 referrals and, in Lanarkshire, well over 500 referrals have been made. We lack a single point of access and the connect between the primary care and secondary care services. That is exactly what the funding is intended to address.

I have every faith that more and more health boards will develop those services much more consistently. Some are already doing that. Some are using the funding and giving us timescales for when the pathways will be more fully developed. However, Murdo Fraser has hit the nail on the head. That is the number 1 issue that comes up from long Covid sufferers time and again. They say that it all sounds good, but they ask whether the approach is consistently working across the country. The answer to that is not yet. That is what we are working on.

You are the second person to sack me in a few weeks.

That could be the case, but in the absence of such clinics I do not think that we should take our foot off the pedal at all on data gathering. I agree with the first point in your question, which is that having such data will be vital for improving the services that we provide. For me, the challenge in having long Covid clinics from what I have read and seen from the various models across the UK—there is not just one model—is that they tend to end up being a bit of a middle man. [Interruption.] I hear a mobile phone ringing. It is like the Oscars: when you have talked for too long the music comes on and they tell you to get off. [Laughter.]