Seòmar agus comataidhean

Perhaps Mr Carnegie could write to us about that.

We will move to Tess White, who joins us remotely.

Our second item is the committee’s third oral evidence session of its inquiry into healthcare in remote and rural areas. We will hear from representatives of allied health professionals and nursing. I welcome Neil Carnegie, manager of the community occupational therapy team in Kirkcaldy, and of postural management for Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, and member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists; David Laidler, professional lead physiotherapist in Argyll and Bute at the Lorn and Islands hospital, and member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy; Catherine Shaw, who joins us remotely, is lead advanced practitioner for the remote and rural support team in NHS Highland; and Sharon Wiener-Ogilvie is vice-chair of the Allied Health Professions Federation Scotland. We move straight to questions.

I am sorry, but we need to move on to questions from David Torrance.

I see that Catherine Shaw wants to come in, but I am conscious that we are already half an hour into this session and we still have lots of questions, so if witnesses could be concise with their answers, that would be very helpful.

I am sorry, but we have run out of time—we have already gone over the time that we allowed for this item, and we have more committee business after this. I must ask you to be extremely brief.

Thanks for that.

At our meeting next week, we will continue our inquiry into healthcare in remote and rural areas, hearing from more representatives of the healthcare workforce.

That concludes the public part of our meeting.

I propose that the committee does not make any recommendation in relation to the negative instrument.

Members indicated agreement.

I have a supplementary question for Professor Smith. You mentioned that there is international research, and I am thinking of other countries that have remote communities, such as Australia and Canada. Are we using the research that has been done there for their rural and remote communities, or are we overlooking some of that?

The second item on our agenda is a second oral evidence session as part of the committee’s inquiry into healthcare in remote and rural areas. Today, we will hear from academics with expertise in rural health and wellbeing, nursing, geriatric care, delivery of rural healthcare and wider issues in remote and rural healthcare.

I welcome to the meeting Dr Stephen Makin, who is a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and honorary consultant geriatrician at NHS Highland; Dr Rebecah MacGilleEathain, who is a research fellow in the division of rural health and wellbeing at the University of the Highlands and Islands; and Professor Annetta Smith, who is a professor emerita at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

We will move straight to questions and to Carol Mochan.