Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in 2024 of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I have received no apologies for today’s meeting. The first item on our agenda is a decision on whether to take items 5, 6, 7 and 8 in private and a decision on whether to consider in private at future meetings a draft report on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We move straight to questions from members.

Emma Harper is next.

The result of the division is: For 8, Against 2, Abstentions 0.

Motion agreed to,

That the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee recommends that the Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates Order 2024 [draft] be approved.

Our third item of business is consideration of an affirmative statutory instrument. The purpose of the instrument is to allow the statutory regulation of anaesthesia associates and physician associates by the General Medical Council. The instrument provides a framework for AA and PA regulation and establishes the powers and duties in relation to the GMC, including the autonomy to set out the detail of its regulatory procedures in its rules. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 9 January 2024 and made no recommendations in relation to it.

We will have an evidence session on the instrument with the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care and supporting Scottish Government officials. Once all our questions have been answered, we will proceed to a formal debate on the motion. I welcome Michael Matheson, the cabinet secretary; Rachel Coutts, from the Scottish Government’s legal directorate, specialising in food, health and social care; Nigel Robinson, the unit head for professional health regulation in the chief nursing officer directorate; and Scott Wood, the unit head for sponsorship and infrastructure in the health workforce directorate.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you for that opening statement.

Before I begin, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I hold a bank staff nurse contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and that I am a mental health nurse registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Am I correct in thinking that the order follows on from a 2019 agreement with the UK Department of Health and Social Care, along with discussions with all the other devolved health departments, about the GMC taking on the regulation of AAs and PAs?

I thank the cabinet secretary and his officials for answering the committee’s questions.

We move to agenda item 4, which is the formal debate on the affirmative instrument on which we have just taken evidence. I ask the cabinet secretary to speak to and move motion S6M-11668.

Thank you for that clarification.

I welcome your statement on some of the commentary that there has been on healthcare professionals working as AAs and PAs. How do you respond to the claims that having the GMC as a regulator will add to confusion between doctors and AAs and PAs. How can that be mitigated?

Thank you, cabinet secretary. That was very helpful.

Thank you, Ms Harper. If that is all from members, would you like to sum up and respond to the debate, cabinet secretary?