Seòmar agus comataidhean

At previous meetings, the committee has taken evidence on shifting the balance of care and moving spend to be more preventative, moving the focus away from hospital settings and more towards the community. The Scottish Government has committed to shifting the balance of care so that at least 50 per cent of front-line health spending takes place in community health services. That commitment is in the budget. Do we now need to be more ambitious, or is 50 per cent adequate for what we are planning?

I am pleased to be asking about sport and active living. We know that, during the first lockdown, people getting out for their daily mile or a walk was really important, including for their mental health. There is a proposal in the budget that investment in sport and active living will double to £100 million by the end of the parliamentary session, which is really good news. How will the additional funding for sport and active living be prioritised?

I have a quick question about social prescribing. In the previous session, the Health and Sport Committee produced a report on the benefits of social prescribing and said that it is an investment, not a cost. Social prescribing is good for physical and mental health. What needs to be done, or is being done, to demonstrate that social prescribing is really good? How will that work provide evidence that social prescribing could benefit from further investment?

My supplementary is similar to Sue Webber’s question about the “Hands, face, space” guidance. We have test and protect in Scotland, while England has had track and trace or test, trace and isolate. What collaborative work will be done on finding out whether TTI, test and protect or whatever worked, and on people’s understanding of and adherence to the guidance? It is important that what is contained in messaging is achievable in order to contain pandemics, so I am interested to hear whether there will be any collaboration on behavioural aspects with regard to such important messages.

Yes.

While we are talking about access, I want to highlight the challenges for rural areas. The minister comes from a rural area in the north-east and he will be well aware of the challenges. I am also thinking of the north-west and the south of Scotland. When women from rural areas access care, are we monitoring that and tracking the care and pathways associated with it?

Regarding the workforce, and the provision of education, I know that there are online learning programmes, including the Royal College of General Practitioners perinatal mental health toolkit. As a vaccinator, I am still accessing the Turas learning models; I did a quick check of the perinatal mental health modules and there are seven specific modules, one of which is on stigma. How do we track those modules and the uptake? Who is taking up those modules? Is it midwives, psychologists or GPs? I think that they are fabulous modules. How do we encourage our healthcare professionals to take up the e-learning modules and how can we monitor that?

The minister mentioned stigma in his opening comments and took a question from Sandesh Gulhane about it, so I will not labour the matter. However, I know that the Government is doing a lot of work to address concerns and raise public awareness around perinatal mental health. One of the issues that is being addressed is concern that mothers might have their children taken away from them. There are 12 action items in the perinatal and infant mental health programme board delivery plan. Will the minister elaborate a wee bit on specific actions that are being taken to tackle stigma?

It is distressing to hear about what is happening in relation to access for support to deal with bereavement and stillbirth. I had a thought about new Scots who come here and end up going through NHS Scotland. What work is being done, or needs to be done, to support new Scots whose first language is not English and who have babies in our country?

Yes—without family networks to support them.