Seòmar agus comataidhean

To segue to Mairi Millar, some local authorities expressed some concern that holding remote meetings and hearings might limit public attendance. Is that your experience? Is there support to amend the bill to make sure that licence applicants can be present and have input into the format that a hearing should take?

Can Douglas Hendry give us the council perspective?

My concern is that, if we reduce the prevalence of Covid to the hoped-for levels, the pressure on the health service will simply move from treating Covid to treating other conditions whose presentation has been delayed. Is that a reasonable assumption to make?

We know that that pressure is coming, and I am sure that it is a global issue rather than something that affects Scotland in isolation. How do we prepare for the fact that, as I said, there are conditions that will continue to put pressure on the health service?

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to ask this question. I want to go a little bit further with Jim Fairlie’s line of questioning. The aspects that we should continue to monitor as we travel on this journey were alluded to earlier. In an earlier session with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Professor Leitch mentioned the extensive data in a paper in The Lancet, which includes global measurements. What should we continue to monitor locally so that we can put our data into a global perspective, perhaps using the World Health Organization’s advice on data gathering?

I point out that it is not about sport for sport’s sake—it is about education through sport and physical activity. I would rather use that phrase, because everybody thinks, when I talk about sport, that I want to make people run eight 400m laps. That is not quite where I am at—I would not attempt that myself.

Moving on from that aspect, I go back to the question of data. Perhaps it would interest the cabinet secretary to look back at the work that the Health and Sport Committee did in the previous session of Parliament on sport and social prescribing. The data is incredibly important, as Professor Leitch highlighted when he discussed the importance of global data.

A lot of the evidence that we have gathered, which has followed the committee through from the previous session, shows that there is a lack of co-ordination in relation to data collection. That will hamper our ability to plan ahead and to reassess—recreate, if you like—the way in which we deliver healthcare.

On top of that, we do not have an information technology system in the NHS that is fit for purpose. For example, the data does not follow the patient from primary care into secondary care, and it does not link up with the third sector. We need all of that to happen.

When we discuss IT platforms, it is incredibly boring, but they are an incredibly important first step. I do not know where the Government is with that.

To be honest, I am disappointed with Mr Rowley’s characterisation of the matter, because it is entirely not the case.

The general public do not know that the majority of the rules that they face are not law, but guidance. They have been following them. My point is that the speed with which, as has been demonstrated, we can bring emergency legislation to the Parliament means that there is no need to continue with the emergency legislation that is in force. If it is required, it can be brought swiftly to the Parliament.

I reiterate to Mr Rowley that my opposition to the motions has nothing to do with party politics. The fact is that the majority of the rules that we follow are guidance, not law.

I want to return to the issue of excess deaths. It was mentioned that most of those are due in part to Covid. If I remember correctly—I am sure that you will correct me if I am wrong—Covid is a contributing factor. For example, a high proportion of people—more than 60 per cent—of those who died of Covid, or whose deaths were Covid-related, were obese. For a third of deaths, diabetes was a factor.

Do we have an opportunity to reassess and reset how we deliver healthcare, and link that to factors that are outside of the NHS? I am talking about looking at the education system in the broadest sense. As Alex Rowley mentioned, there was a high incidence of Covid deaths among those in poverty. Do we have an opportunity, looking ahead, to reset healthcare? If you agree with that, how will the Government take up that opportunity?

I should probably declare an interest at this point, as I was a director of a healthcare tech company that worked on collaboration and communication platforms before I became an MSP.

The technology in question is not new and is available. On your point about not having to reset everything, I would say that we need to be able to suck data into a central platform, allow those data to talk to each other and then see how we can use the output. As we discussed the last time that you were here, I am suggesting that we do not have an IT system that can do that at the moment. If we are to move forward, that issue needs to be addressed, and I am happy to discuss that with you offline.

I want to follow up John Mason’s comments about occupied beds. Cabinet secretary, you alluded to the fact that we are starting to see a switch from beds being occupied by Covid cases to beds being taken up by patients with other conditions. That issue was also mentioned during the previous agenda item. Are we getting to a point at which the other conditions that have been delayed are beginning to present? Is that the next crisis that the NHS will face? Will dealing with delayed presentations maintain the pressure on it?