Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning. With the pandemic causing huge backlogs for the national health service, as well as pressure on it from politicians and the media especially, do you think that primary prevention will be neglected?

The panel members have talked about recruitment vacancies in the NHS. I think that Dr Robertson mentioned that it can take years to recruit from abroad, and Brexit has not helped with that. How do we make the NHS attractive for people to retrain for, and how do we encourage school leavers to consider working in the NHS as a career path?

Yes.

Yes—sorry.

As far back as 2017, a public petition was raised on the harms of prescription drugs. A short-life working group took it up and made its recommendations in March this year. In addition, in January, the First Minister announced a national mission to reverse the number of deaths from prescription drugs. What progress has been made on the dependency on prescription drugs?

Thank you for that, convener. As someone who attended several evidence sessions on the matter in session 5, I would like to keep the petition open, because there are questions to be asked, as my two colleagues have mentioned. Perhaps the committee could write to the different organisations involved. I would like to write to the Civil Aviation Authority to find out how successful such projects have been in other areas. We have been given guarantees that the project is on budget, but I would like to see that in writing. I would definitely like to see the island impact assessment, to see how the project would impact on the local economy.

I should have mentioned digital Scotland earlier—I note that Rhoda Grant did so. Can we write a letter to find out whether the project is an amber project or a red project?

The Scottish Government has made headway, but I agree with the recommendation made by the Public Petitions Committee in session 5 to bring in the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. We should see how much progress the Scottish Government has made and what it is doing to rectify the faults that have been flagged up in the system.

I would like to keep the petition open. I do not think that it will meet its aim of having the protection in place before COP26, but we should seek an update from the Scottish Government on its response to the independent deer working group, as suggested by the Public Petitions Committee in the previous session, and see where we are with biodiversity and the protection of woodlands.

I thank my colleagues for giving evidence. I would like to keep the petition open. We should write to the remote and rural general practice short-life working group, chaired by Sir Lewis Ritchie, and to the rural NHS boards to seek their views on the action called for in the petition. I would also like to write to Scottish Government to request an update on the establishment of a national centre for remote and rural health to see what progress has been made.