Seòmar agus comataidhean

It follows on from the language question and concerns access to healthcare services. The language barriers around healthcare are often critically important. This question is directed at Pat Togher. What work is under way on that? We know that barriers to access to healthcare already exist for homeless people but are greater for people who do not have English as their first language.

That is helpful. Any details that you can provide to us of what that looks like would be very useful.

I want to move on to the issue of addressing stigma, which you touched on in your opening statement, and the role of trauma-informed services. I will specifically focus on local government. There are concerns that budgetary pressures will mean that the task force’s recommendations and local authorities’ work in trying to turn around the public health crisis will not necessarily be carried out. I fully accept that there are pressures because of the pandemic, but why do you think that that is the case? Given the cuts that we are seeing to local council budgets, are you concerned that the issues that we need local authorities to address—housing is often one of the key issues—will not necessarily be addressed? How will the task force recommend that those aspects are given the priority that they need?

Good morning, Mr Strang. Thank you for joining us. I will ask about a few issues that relate to Community Pharmacy Scotland’s role in the public health crisis. In your opening statement, you highlighted naloxone. Why has some of the work that was meant to be done on access to single records for individuals not been done?

That is helpful. Perhaps I will take up that detail with the Minister for Drugs Policy in our next evidence session.

All of us at the meeting support the naloxone programme, but it has not gone where we wanted it to. Part of the frustration about the task force is that some of the key recommendations that the Government accepted do not seem to have been implemented. I fully understand that you are new to the role, but can you tell me why those discussions with Community Pharmacy Scotland have not taken place?

It would be helpful to get an update on timescales. I was a member of the Health and Sport Committee in session 5, and we understood that the work would be moved forward quite quickly. The opportunity to provide some sort of traffic-light warning system for patients was discussed, but that does not seem to have materialised. I hope that that will become a genuine priority and that progress will be made on that.

I turn to review of available treatments, on which I have corresponded with you for some time. I am thinking about the potential availability of treatment such as neuro-electric therapy. Where is the Government with the work to enable people to feel that they are genuinely able to take decisions about what is best for them and their families, given where they are with their addictions, and to support their decision making and empowerment?

Finally, before I hand back to the convener—

Thank you, convener. I appreciate that.

Mr Strang, I was taken with what you said earlier about your work in mental health support in Dundee and the inquiry that you undertook there. Would you support a legal right to rehabilitation for people in Scotland? Is that a piece of work that the task force will start to look at? As you highlighted, it is very important that we make sure that people have the right to access those services and that they can take those decisions for themselves and drive their treatment. What is your view on that?

Good morning. I have a few questions about the naloxone programme and Community Pharmacy Scotland. We all support the naloxone programme, but I have been frustrated by the progress of the work of the task force in making a difference in that respect. Why is naloxone not included in the national supply line for pharmacists to access through Pharmacy First? On the task force’s recommendations, why has a single record for patients not been developed, given that we have a public health emergency, and given the improvement in outcomes that that measure could deliver?

I thank the witnesses for those answers. Tony Cain is right that it is an art form, and not necessarily a science.

Homes for Scotland’s useful briefing ahead of today’s meeting talked about flexibility and what that should look like. It highlighted that alternative sites could be given planning permission for housing if those that are allocated in local development plans prove not to be deliverable. If there is no change in how the estimates are formed, what would such flexibility look like? How can we direct new developments to where they are needed? What are the witnesses’ thoughts on that? I will bring in Nicola Barclay, as I mentioned Homes for Scotland’s call for flexibility.

Thank you. Convener, I am happy to hand back to you, given the time.