Seòmar agus comataidhean

I absolutely agree with you on the impact of team sports. That is intuitive, but the evidence supports that. I think that work that was done in Wales on adverse childhood experiences showed that participating in team sports mitigates issues and that the benefit lasts into adulthood. If we are looking for a benefit that has a long-lasting impact, encouraging team sports is definitely important.

Opportunities to be physically active have been prioritised throughout the pandemic, but they have been restricted. Even just not walking to and from school will have had an impact on many children. I think that much of the reason why children and many of us in the population gained weight was that we were not out and about exercising. We were without the exercise that we would normally do every day in just getting from A to B, which we do not even realise is exercise. There have been significant restrictions on our being out and about and on sport and physical activity, and there has been reduced active travel.

We are seeing an impact from that, which is likely to have been felt unequally. Our early understanding is that, as is the case in almost every situation, people in more deprived communities have suffered more. That is probably due to people not having access to green spaces or a garden. Being holed up in a flat was a very different prospect from being holed up in a detached house with a large garden.

Our sports clubs and governing bodies have been incredibly supportive in the recovery. Even in the midst of the pandemic, we saw some of our sports clubs in communities being a huge part of the response. They reached out, supported their communities, and played a key and pivotal role—and they have continued to play that role.

It has been easier for outdoor sports to recover than it has been for indoor sports to do so. That is to do with how the virus operates. It is safer to gather together outdoors than to gather indoors. We have therefore seen huge increases in participation in, and waiting lists for, football and rugby, and most of the outdoor team sports have recovered pretty well. The indoor sports have had a tougher time. The need to further restrict indoor sports for adults over the course of the omicron spike has also made it difficult for them.

We absolutely recognise the importance of being physically active. That is why we have prioritised that throughout the pandemic. However, despite our best efforts, there has been an impact.

Absolutely. Reaching communities who do not participate in health programmes, and preventive health programmes in particular, is a complex issue. We need to be innovating right across the board and right across the lifespan of the population to reach them. I am delighted that your part of the country is contributing to the evidence base, which is building UK-wide. We cannot move to self-sampling without being sure that is safe and effective, but Scotland is contributing to building that evidence, and I am proud of that.

It is an area on which we have always worked and collaborated well on a four-nations basis, and it is vital that we do that. We are quite a small country and we sometimes require organs for individual citizens that are not available in Scotland. Conversely, we sometimes have organs that we cannot use in Scotland and it is really important that we have ways of sharing them. It is not unusual for such a system to be operated across units like the UK, and such collaborations sometimes occur even more widely. In a couple of instances, we have shared organs into the Republic of Ireland, and I think that there are arrangements in place for that to happen with France as well.

It is really important that there are high standards and that each nation is aware of the standards that operate in each country in order to make sure that the system is safe and transparent.

You were not here when I made my opening statement; I understand that you were listening on your way in. Early on in my—

That is not a risk. I absolutely reassure people who want to give this immense gift to help their fellow citizens that there is no risk whatsoever that the framework will prevent them from doing that. The framework will enable good co-operation, and continued co-operation. We already work really well and closely together. The framework will enable further co-operation and collaboration even in the event of policy divergence. It will prevent the concerns that you raise, rather than contributing to them.

Certainly, the process is routine. As new policy is developed and new legislation comes in, it will be a standard part of the practice.

Thank you, convener. I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee with this inquiry into the health and wellbeing of children and young people in Scotland. I thank everyone who responded to the inquiry, either in writing or in person.

As has been noted, the impact that poverty, challenging family circumstances and the pandemic have had on babies, children and young people cannot be overstated. I pay tribute to our young people who, throughout the pandemic, have been extremely gracious in the way that they have responded to the curtailing of their everyday lives. We know that the impact is already being seen in children’s speech and language skills, in the increased risk of being overweight or obese, and in mental wellbeing. As decision makers, we need to do all that we can to ensure that children and young people have the right support at the right time so that they can flourish.

Early identification is key, and our universal services are at the forefront of our efforts to tackle those issues before they become long-term problems. We do not want the adults of tomorrow to be dependent on acute health care because of issues that they face as children today. We need to turn off the tap now so that the effects are not seen downstream in the future. That is why our health visiting service plays a vital role, as it helps babies and children to thrive through their first five years. A health visitor who is following the evidence-based universal health visiting pathway and meeting children and their families in their homes is a trusted source of support and knowledge for families. By picking up issues early, a platform for children’s health and wellbeing is set that takes them through to adulthood.

Every part of Government has a role in tackling the challenges that impact on children’s health. Children and young people are one of our national priorities in the national performance framework. That is because we know that every part of Government and society needs our children to achieve the best possible physical and mental health and wellbeing. We need to ensure that protecting and promoting children’s rights are at the heart of all that we do. Having good health and wellbeing is about more than simply the absence of illness; it makes learning easier and future life choices wider. It makes an active and enjoyable life more likely. It is therefore paramount that we have early identification of need and that responsive high-quality supports are available to meet that need.

We know that the Covid-19 period has been exceptionally difficult for the mental health and wellbeing of many children and young people and their families, and we have been working directly with children, young people, parents and carers to develop policies to address that. The Government is making significant investments in our mental health services to encourage recovery and renewal as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. We recognise how important it is for children and young people to be able to access mental health and wellbeing support at the earliest possible stage, which is why early intervention is a key focus of our mental health and wellbeing transition and recovery plan, and why children and young people’s focused activities make up a large proportion of the £120 million recovery fund that supports the plan.

We have provided funding to a range of children and young people’s organisations to create a suite of online resources, information and advice to support the emotional health and wellbeing of children and young people. Young people and families have also told us that they need more support that is delivered in a community setting for mental and emotional distress and for their wellbeing and resilience. Therefore, in this financial year, we have provided local authorities with an additional £15 million to fund more than 230 new and enhanced supports and services for children and young people. We are also providing an additional £15 million in 2022-23 to fund the continuation of those services.

Every baby, child and young person in Scotland has the right to the best possible physical and mental health. I look forward to the outcome of the committee’s inquiry as we continue to work to improve outcomes for babies, children and young people to enable them to reach their full potential.

That is an excellent and timely question, because we are seeing in the early data as we come out of the pandemic an alarming increase in childhood obesity levels. That has been an increasing challenge for us over the past few years—from even before the pandemic. However, last year, we saw some worrying statistics relating to children entering primary 1 who had heavier weights than ever before. There was a big increase, despite the fact that we have prioritised sport and physical activity for children throughout the pandemic.

We set some challenging targets pre-pandemic to tackle childhood obesity and significantly reduce diet-related health inequalities, and we will undoubtedly have to look at that programme in detail to ensure that we are achieving what we want to achieve. We want to make it easier for people to make healthy choices and to reduce the health harm that is caused by diet and unhealthy weight.

However, the problem is a complex one. There is no single one-size-fits-all answer that we can simply pick off the shelf and make a difference with. We will have to do multiple things. We will have to start looking at the problem from before children are even conceived and look at women’s health. We will have to support women during the antenatal period and support children from birth right up to their starting school.

We have a number of programmes to tackle obesity in general. There is an extra £2 million to improve weight management services for children and young people who are going into the system, and we introduced new school food regulations to make school food and drink even healthier. I have talked about the work that we are doing to improve breastfeeding rates. The more breastfeeding there is, the lower the risk of obesity. We are also looking at food labelling, particularly infant food labelling, because incorrect health claims are quite often made on infant foods, and at food that is sold as snacks and treats. Babies do not need biscuits. We are taking a multipronged approach to tackling and improving the diet of our children and young people.

You are right that we need to increase physical activity—I am absolutely passionate about that—but experts tell me time and again that people cannot outrun a bad diet. Therefore, we need to tackle both. We need to tackle diet as well as increase physical activity. Increased physical activity will help the physical and mental health of children and young people. We have a solid body of evidence that points in that direction.

Physical activity is also fun. Children learn through play and getting outdoors. Each and every one of us will know that getting outdoors and exercising has been among the best ways to cope with the challenging situation that we have been in for the past couple of years. It is no different for children. They need to get outdoors and let off steam, and we need to create more opportunities for them to do that. That is a focus for the early years.

The best way for me to answer the question is to talk about two particular programmes. I will talk first about the universal health visiting programme, which is a universal service that is available to everyone, and then about the more targeted family nurse partnership.

At the start of the pandemic, all our services pivoted to a digital response, and face to face visiting was reduced. However, in recognition of the importance to new parents of the health visiting service, new parents and babies were prioritised at that time of national emergency. Right at the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, the Scottish Government produced national clinical guidance to ask the health visiting services to prioritise visits for new babies—that is, the first visit at 10 days and the six to eight-week check. That guidance was adapted throughout the pandemic. Time and again, we asked for babies and children to be prioritised. Health visitors largely remained in post and were not redeployed to other parts of the response.

The Government closely monitored the situation. Over the first six months of the pandemic, health boards regularly reported to the Government data on health visitor checks. We kept an eye on the situation, we gave instructions and guidance on what we expected to happen, and we made sure that it happened. As well as that check during the emergency situation, our regular child health surveillance programme continued during the pandemic, so we collected our usual data.

Child health reviews were carried out throughout the pandemic. Some of the contacts might have been virtual. They might have looked a little different on the ground and might have felt a little different for families, but the contact was still there. The data shows very little difference compared to pre-pandemic levels in the percentage of reviews that were carried out, at first visits and then the visits at six to eight weeks, 13 to 15 months, 27 to 30 months and four to five years.

We have a programme in place to evaluate the universal health visiting pathway. We do not just ask health boards to implement the universal health visiting pathway and leave them to it; we look at not just whether it is happening but at whether it is having the impact that we want it to have, because we want it to make a difference. The phase 1 evaluation report was published in December last year. The Scottish Government accepts the findings in full and is pretty keen to consider and build on the recommendations in the report and identify appropriate next steps.

The family nurse partnership is targeted support that is aimed at young people under the age of 19 with children, and some people are eligible for it up to the age of 24. It provides holistic support from early in pregnancy right the way through to when the child is two years old. That is an evidence-based programme. We know what we anticipate achieving with it, and we look to see that it has that impact. That support, too, was prioritised throughout the pandemic, including home visits. More vulnerable families are involved in the programme, so home visits were prioritised, and we collected data to ensure that that was happening. At any one time, around 3,000 families across Scotland are supported by the family nurse partnership. In the past 10 years, more than 10,000 families have received support from the programme, with more than 6,000 families graduating.

We collect a lot of data—we do not leave it to chance. We continually try to improve. Scotland is recognised around the world as having some of the best quality-improvement methodology built in to our national health service services anywhere in the world. We continually strive to improve what we deliver to families to meet their health needs.

I recognise the urgency of working on that and that, for every individual who is affected by baby loss it is an absolute trauma. We want to get it right for women as fast as we can.

It would be foolish of me to make promises, particularly today. The pandemic is not finished with us yet, and we face further challenges that we had not predicted. We have been living with uncertainty for the past couple of years, so it would be foolish of me to promise certainty over the next couple of months. It is very clear, this week of all weeks, that that is not possible.

What I can do is assure that witness that I recognise the urgency and that we will work as fast as we can to ensure that every woman, throughout Scotland, can access flexible person-centred and family-centred care when she needs it.