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In the programme for government, there was an announcement about the reopening of the independent living fund. Are you able to speak a wee bit about that?

Before I ask my question, I note that I was one of those social care workers who worked in a care home and then progressed to doing nursing training. I became a nurse and was one for 30 years. We should absolutely pursue opportunities for career progression.

The aim of the national care service is to take a standard national approach to the provision of education for care givers. Is that something that we will see as we progress the service so that it doesnae matter where someone is in the country because everyone will be provided with the same level of education, which will allow people to be more mobile in their career pathways?

My question is on the Scottish graduate entry medicine programme, which has been really successful in Dumfries and Galloway. My understanding is that retention there has been fab. Cabinet secretary, is ScotGEM unique to Scotland? I know that there are general practitioner issues across the four United Kingdom nations. Are you aware of whether the other nations are considering a ScotGEM-equivalent programme? Scotland leads the way on the matter.

Our briefing papers talk about the “cost of obesity”. I know that the language is changing around that and that rather than labelling someone as having a disease we are now using less stigmatising language and saying that they are a person who is

“living with overweight or obesity”.

Should we be thinking about that and ensuring that people understand that we should not blame people for something that might be not their fault but could be because of issues to do with poverty and access to fruit and vegetables in neighbourhoods where local shops do not have such food. What work is being done to destigmatise the language around obesity so that we can support people in food choices and in access to food?

I am interested in the national treatment centres in relation to winter planning. Pamela Milliken mentioned that, after people fall on ice, they occupy an emergency orthopaedic bed space. The national treatment centres are intended to keep bed spaces sequestered for elective approaches. The NHS Golden Jubilee National Hospital site has the national eye centre, and Fife has the orthopaedic centre. Will such centres help with planning organised approaches to beds in secondary care?

Because of my background in orthopaedic surgery and working in the operating room, I am curious about the flexibility of staff and the ability for them not to work in isolation. It is important that people know that we have the national treatment centres with the goal of challenging waiting lists for hip or knee replacements and ophthalmology, for instance.

I am interested in digital care. We have Near Me. When I was reading my papers for the committee, I found out about Connect Me, which seems—so that people feel more connected, rather than feeling remote—to have evolved because of use of language that was remote. We have telehealth and telemedicine—all this telestuff—and now we have Connect Me, but none of my nursing colleagues has heard about Connect Me.

What work do you think needs to be done to help people to understand what Connect Me is all about? I understand that technology enabled care is beneficial, especially, as John Burns mentioned, in cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, through chronic respiratory early warning scoring—CREWS—in the community to keep folk out of hospital. I am very familiar with that, but I am interested in how we get info out to people about what digital solutions are out there.

Technology enabled care in Scotland has a Twitter—or X—account, but folk in Dumfries and Galloway dinnae do Twitter, thank goodness; they do Facebook. Should we use different social media platforms to help to raise awareness about the work that the Scottish Government is doing on digital tech solutions, for instance?

Good morning to panel number 2. I will pick up on what John Burns said about national treatment centres. Pamela Milliken, who was on the previous panel, said that winter planning includes having to think about slips and trips on ice, which can lead to orthopaedic injuries for which people need emergency surgery. However, the national treatment centres are for elective approaches, such as tackling ophthalmic or orthopaedic issues and performing upper gastrointestinal endoscopies.

John-Paul Loughrey, who was on the previous panel, said that staffing those centres would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul. However, my understanding is that our First Minister, when he was Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, said that 1,500 additional staff would be used for the centres. Can you give us an update on whether we will be robbing Peter to pay Paul? What is the status of the recruitment of new staff for the centres?

Thanks, convener. It is gonnae be brief. I am thinking about public messaging this winter to encourage folk to take up their Covid and flu vaccines because of BA.2.86—the new variant that people are worried about. Is more messaging needed out there to say that Covid isnae over and to encourage people to take the vaccine?