Holyrood, made browsable

Hansard

Every contribution to the Official Report — chamber and committee — searchable in one place. Pulled from data.parliament.scot, indexed for full-text search, linked through to every MSP.

129

Current MSPs

415

MSPs ever elected

13

Parties on record

2,354,908

Hansard contributions

1999–2026

Coverage span

Official Report

Search Hansard contributions

Showing 60 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill

Thank you very much for those kind words, Presiding Officer. Of the seven bills that the Health and Sport Committee dealt with during this session of the Parliament, six have been before us during the past five or six months. This final stage 3 debate brings to a close a part...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill

Jackson Carlaw quickly absorbed the detail of our health service, which I have lived and breathed for a long time. It has been a privilege to represent the great folk of north-east Scotland for the past 13 years and to meet the many people whom I have got to know down here th...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I welcome the minister’s amendments in the group. I share Malcolm Chisholm’s concern and look forward to hearing what the minister says about his amendments 86A and 95A. The Health and Sport Committee discussed the issues with bereaved parents. They are obviously sensitive iss...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Schools Autism Awareness Week

I extend my thanks to my North East Scotland colleague Mark McDonald for once again bringing to the chamber a debate on autism. In the lifetime of the Parliament, we have looked at many aspects of understanding and coping with the condition, such as relaxed cinema and theatre ...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15

I was interested in Dr Calderwood’s comments about commissioning in the NHS in England. The comparison here would be with GP fundholding, which, given that my husband was a GP fundholder, I have some experience of. As we know, that was not a politically acceptable arrangement ...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15

I found your report very exciting, because it links to the committee’s work on palliative care and Sir Lewis Ritchie’s work on out-of-hours care. Given the potential for very exciting developments in future, I feel quite sorry to be leaving the Parliament at this time. When I...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15

I do not know whether any other member was, but I was on a previous health committee with Duncan McNeil, when the smoking ban went through. You were very kind to me on that committee, as I struggled as a new member on my own. Likewise, as convener of this committee, you have b...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15

Yes. My train was 50 minutes late, so I apologise.

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Marie Curie Great Daffodil Appeal

I, too, thank Linda Fabiani for lodging this motion on an issue that we discuss every year. Of course, this year is special, given that we are celebrating Marie Curie’s 30th anniversary of its great daffodil appeal. At last week’s Scottish Conservative Party conference, where...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

I agree that we should close the petition. Kim Hartley Kean—as she now is—has put a huge amount of effort into the petition and into speech and language therapy in general. I note that in her letter she suggests that we recommend to a future health committee that it consider c...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

The RCN has suggested that the new power could give you a conflict of interests, given your dual role of scrutiny and improvement. Do you agree with that comment, or would you like to say anything about that?

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

When I came to the meeting, I could not really distinguish between the two amendments. However, having listened to what has been said by the minister and by Malcolm Chisholm, I think that Malcolm Chisholm’s amendment 1049 is more explicit and would ensure that the woman is con...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

I have a question for the minister. At the moment, many funeral directors can be left with ashes for quite a long time. Will regulations put in place a time limit for funeral directors to hand back ashes?

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill

I begin my closing remarks by returning to parts 2 and 3 of the bill. I grew up in a paternalistic NHS, at a time when patients expected and received little information about the treatment that they were given and accepted without question that health professionals, particular...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill

This afternoon sees the completion of the fifth piece of legislation to be scrutinised by the Health and Sport Committee in the last few months of this parliamentary session. I echo the thanks that have already been expressed to all those who have contributed to our understand...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I support Malcolm Chisholm’s amendments, and I will be brief. From my experience in the health service, I am well aware that there are patients who certainly do not want to know the detail of what goes on even in their own treatment, or if there have been mistakes. I appreciat...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Portfolio Question Time · Delayed Discharge (NHS Grampian)

The cabinet secretary will be aware that I lodged an amendment to the Carers (Scotland) Bill to the effect that discharge planning should start as early as reasonably possible on the patient’s hospital journey. Does she know whether any hospitals in Scotland are adopting that ...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

That would be welcome. In our discussion, we heard that people did not know how many patients were being treated, what therapies were being provided and so on. Do you think that the fund will continue to be funded centrally? I know that at the moment it is funded through the ...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

Witnesses at last week’s round-table discussion seemed unclear about which boards were using all their funds. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said that it was using all of its funds and perhaps needed more. Are other boards using all of their funds, or are there are still more f...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

Cabinet secretary, I share your enthusiasm about progress so far and agree with you that more can be made. On the distribution of spending from the new medicines fund, I was under the impression that the fund was held centrally and that applications could be made to it. Howev...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Caring in Craigmillar

I, too, congratulate Kenny MacAskill on securing what I now know will be his final debate before he retires as the member for Edinburgh Eastern. I wish him well for the future. The motion is very much a constituency-focused one, as Caring in Craigmillar is a grass-roots suppo...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

It would be quite useful to know.

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

Dr McMahon talked about looking at things other than drugs and perhaps decommissioning things that are not cost effective. The committee agonised over that a bit in our inquiry, and it might be something that a future committee could be encouraged to look at and take some evid...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

I am interested in hearing how things are progressing with access to new medicines. As you know, the committee has done a lot of work on the issue over the years. How has access to new medicines improved since our investigations began? Have any changes been successful in impr...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Access to New Medicines

I am an MSP for North East Scotland.

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

That is helpful. I had not picked up the point about the cosmetic side. HIS seems to be involved in many areas of health inspection these days. Are you confident that HIS will be able to get the appropriate people to carry out the work?

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

You have an uncanny knack of answering the question that I was going to ask, convener. I was quite surprised to see the independent midwives included, because I understand that they are already pretty heavily regulated by the Nursery and Midwifery Council. What can HIS do tha...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

I just wondered what the situation is south of the border.

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

I apologise if I missed this point, but does the order bring Scotland more into line with the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland? 09:45

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2016

In the five years of this session of Parliament, Dennis Robertson has brought the issue of eating disorders to the chamber on numerous occasions, through debates and questions. I am sure that, should he be re-elected, that will continue. From dealing with the effect on females...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Topical Question Time · General Practitioner Services (Funding)

It seems that senior GPs are queuing up to express their concern about the percentage fall in GP funding as a share of national health service resources—the latest example being Dr Ken Lawton, who is a senior partner at the Great Western medical practice in Aberdeen, who said ...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

I was going to ask about independent midwives, convener, but you got in first, so you can move on.

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

I am an MSP for North East Scotland.

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

We have had a useful discussion of the bill, and there is clearly support across the chamber for its general principles. I will touch on the Local Government and Regeneration Committee’s stage 1 report, which considered the parts of the bill other than those that relate to pre...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

There has been a general welcome for the Scottish Government’s intention in the bill to “create legislation which is fit for twenty-first century Scotland”, because much of the law governing burial and cremation dates back well over 100 years and is increasingly unfit for pu...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Portfolio Question Time · Local Government Funding (Reform)

There is increasing concern that north-east households, which already pay the highest council tax levels in Scotland, will be hit by new higher bands that the commission and local tax reform proposed. Any change to the banding system, such as the introduction of two new top-ra...

9. Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Portfolio Question Time · Local Government Funding (Reform)

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to reform local government funding. (S4O-05542)

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Penrose Inquiry

I just thought that it was important to put that on the record.

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Penrose Inquiry

Quite a lot of frustration has been expressed to us about the small number of case studies that were examined during the Penrose evidence taking. Is there any intention of giving people their day in court, let us say, so that they can put across their experiences? Is there any...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Penrose Inquiry

The question that I was going to ask has just been covered. I was going to ask about the 200 figure.

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Transplantation (Authorisation of Removal of Organs etc) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I do not think that I have time—I am sorry. Another contentious aspect of the bill is the role of the authorised investigating person, who is described in the policy memorandum as a health professional whose role would be “to determine whether or not a deceased adult’s orga...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Transplantation (Authorisation of Removal of Organs etc) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I add my thanks to all the witnesses who gave evidence to the Health and Sport Committee, to the committee clerks for their hard work and support in bringing that evidence together and to the member in charge of the bill for raising the profile of the hugely important issue of...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I thank the minister for that clarification. Amendment 39 agreed to. After section 25 Amendment 40 moved—Nanette Milne—and agreed to. Section 28—Local carer strategies

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I cannot stress enough the importance of carers being fully involved in the hospital discharge planning of the person for whom they care to ensure that appropriate support arrangements are in place before that person is discharged from hospital. Following acceptance of my st...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Alcohol (Licensing, Public Health and Criminal Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I commend Richard Simpson for the tenacity that he has shown over almost four years since he lodged a draft proposal for a member’s bill to prevent and tackle various aspects of alcohol misuse, which is a matter that has concerned him for many years and which he is keen to add...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill

I endorse the thanks that have already been given to all those who have helped with the progress of the bill through its parliamentary stages. When I first entered Parliament nearly 13 years ago, I knew almost nothing about carers, even though I and other family members had b...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I appreciate the minister’s acceptance of my genuine concern about discharge planning. He did not say anything about guidance on when care planning would start. Initially, I wanted that to be as soon as possible after admission to hospital, but I realise that there could be pr...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Amendments 33 and 34 are intended to help make the breaks from caring that may be delivered through support under the bill more effective. Section 23(1) of the bill requires that “A local authority, in determining which support to provide to a carer under section 22(4), must ...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Chamber

Carers (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I speak in support of amendments 14, 24 and 27. When a carer loses a loved one or someone to whom they have become emotionally attached through caring for them through a terminal illness, the experience can be devastating and leave the carer feeling quite abandoned and bereft....

Nanette Milne Con Committee

We should close the petition. There is no point in keeping it open, because we have done everything that was asked of us. I quite like Mike MacKenzie’s suggestion that we put a small paragraph on the matter in our legacy paper.

Nanette Milne Con Committee

I agree with Rhoda Grant. I first heard about the on-going situation with CHAS at the cross-party group on muscular dystrophy, which was attended by people from Action Duchenne. People with Duchenne muscular dystrophy are now surviving into adulthood, and it is exactly right t...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Subordinate Legislation

What about services provided by, for example, the third or voluntary sectors? How would complaints against them work?

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Palliative Care

Is it the plan for training and support to start pretty early at the undergraduate level for nurses and particularly doctors? I presume that, once they are in post, there must be on-going training or support—I do not know what it would be called. I feel that that has to be int...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Palliative Care

Good morning. I was delighted with the Government’s response to the committee’s report, given the amount of work that went into it. It is good that there is mutual thinking on the issue, and I am sorry that I will not be in Parliament to see the progress that will be made. How...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

The principle of this amendment on the provision of communication equipment and the associated support that is required is excellent. I was glad to hear what the minister said about guidance to health boards, because I was quite concerned when I saw the number of suggested ame...

Nanette Milne Con Committee

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

I hear what Richard Lyle says; we would all agree that there is excellent care in many cases. Nonetheless, there are cases such as the one that Mary Scanlon told us about. I remember her telling me about it some months ago. It really is an appalling thing and the law should be...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con Committee

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

I support Malcolm Chisholm’s amendment 17. I was particularly struck by the evidence that we received about the procedure in England. Having grown up through a very paternalistic health service, I think that the amendment is probably a step in the right direction.

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Social and Economic Success

The member may be interested to know that I joined the Conservative Party because I believe in helping those who cannot help themselves. That is why I am a firm believer in the national health service, and it is why I think that we cannot do these things without a thriving eco...

Nanette Milne Con Chamber

Social and Economic Success

I have only six minutes, so I will not give way to Mr Stewart. I recognise the impact of changes to the income tax personal allowance, which will take hundreds of thousands of the lowest earners in Scotland out of paying income tax altogether. We recognise the achievements o...

← Back to list

Committee

Health and Sport Committee 15 March 2016

15 Mar 2016 · S4 · Health and Sport Committee

Item of business

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2014-15

Milne, Nanette Con North East Scotland Watch on SPTV

I found your report very exciting, because it links to the committee’s work on palliative care and Sir Lewis Ritchie’s work on out-of-hours care. Given the potential for very exciting developments in future, I feel quite sorry to be leaving the Parliament at this time. When I graduated in medicine in 1965, the set-up was very paternalistic. I know that a number of my generation quite liked it that way, and I think that they might be dreading what lies ahead, so they will probably need some convincing that a new form of NHS is better than what they grew up with. A job of work needs to be done around that. Your comments on prescribing and so on link with the committee’s work on cancer medicines. A big ethical question that needs to be thrashed out relates to the benefit that patients may derive from end-of-life drugs. Moreover, in relation to end-of-life care, Marie Curie always highlights the fact that we as a society simply do not speak about death, and I think that it is important that we address that. My question kind of links into that. We know that drugs are heavily evaluated—and quite rightly so. After all, cost effectiveness has to be looked at. However, I—and, indeed, many others—have a worry that many other things in the NHS are just not scrutinised in the same way. Many procedures or systems that are in existence must have gone out of fashion, but new things just get tagged on to the old. That some people are still using those procedures or systems must be a significant cost to an NHS that is and will always be under financial pressure. I wondered about your thoughts on that. Is there a sensible way of evaluating other parts of the NHS? 10:15

In the same item of business

The Convener (Duncan McNeil) Lab

Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2016—indeed, to the last meeting in this session—of the Health and Sport Committee. As I normally do at this ...

Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con) Con

Yes. My train was 50 minutes late, so I apologise.

The Convener Lab

It is great to have the chief medical officer along. If members will indulge me, however, I want first to take the opportunity in the last meeting of the ses...

Nanette Milne Con

I do not know whether any other member was, but I was on a previous health committee with Duncan McNeil, when the smoking ban went through. You were very kin...

The Convener Lab

Thank you very much, Nanette—that was nice of you. We need to press on. Our first item of business is evidence from the new chief medical officer for Scotla...

Dr Catherine Calderwood (Scottish Government)

Thank you very much, convener. I am delighted to be here to talk about my first annual report. I believe that this is the first time that the chief medical o...

The Convener Lab

Thank you. Our first question is from Malcolm Chisholm.

Malcolm Chisholm (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (Lab) Lab

I think that we are going to deal with the report in its two parts, so I will ask about obesity later. You have introduced the first part of the report, and ...

Dr Calderwood

The point has been raised by others; you are not alone in thinking that the report may be taking a controversial line on that issue. Dr Cameron, who is a f...

Dr Angus Cameron (Scottish Government)

It is important to recognise that the graph shows a steady decline from the 1950s in the rate of heart disease in the population. The important thing is to d...

Malcolm Chisholm Lab

Statins are a grey area; I presume that medication for high blood pressure is not, although it is referred to in that same paragraph.

Dr Calderwood

Again, other interventions are very effective in reducing blood pressure—for example, weight loss, stopping smoking and taking more exercise. The blood press...

Malcolm Chisholm Lab

I have a final question, convener. Although the first part of your report is addressed to doctors, obviously your narrative is about talking to patients abo...

Dr Calderwood

I will bring in Dr Kramer in a moment. That is a question that I have asked myself. I had to start somewhere with the report; the doctors were the obvious pl...

Dr Graham Kramer (Scottish Government)

In my other job, I am a GP in Tayside. Malcolm Chisholm has asked a very good question about a real issue. There is a worry that patients may opt for more co...

The Convener Lab

Moving beyond statins and on to the effects of other interventions, I suppose that that is where the GP’s confidence to recommend a befriending group rather ...

Dr Calderwood

The walking groups that have been set up are a good example. They are run by charities that want to come in and offer such alternatives, which are about frie...

It is very difficult to build up capacity in communities to provide alternatives to the biomedical approach. Kaiser Permanente, the American healthcare group...

The Convener Lab

I understand the point, but integration of health and social care is a structural thing. We are dealing with a cultural thing—patient demand, the need to do ...

I will give a quick response. You are right that there is patient expectation, and GPs are working in a time-famine situation and having to come up with prag...

Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP

Good morning, Dr Calderwood. I hope to explore a similar issue, but with a more rural focus, because I represent the Highlands and Islands. When I recently ...

Dr Calderwood

There is a lot of evidence that more junior doctors do more investigation and treatment than more senior doctors, which absolutely comes back to your point t...

Mike MacKenzie SNP

That is useful, but I suppose that my point was not so much about junior doctors as about other health professions—for example, nurses doing work that previo...

Dr Calderwood

Traditionally, we have seen people from rural areas, in all sorts of professions and occupations, move to the cities. Increasingly, though, we are beginning ...

Nanette Milne Con

I found your report very exciting, because it links to the committee’s work on palliative care and Sir Lewis Ritchie’s work on out-of-hours care. Given the p...

Dr Calderwood

I am pleased that you brought that up, because I had considered including a chapter on value-based medicine. However, coming back to Mr Chisholm’s point abou...

Professor Craig White (Scottish Government)

On the parallels that have been drawn with the committee’s work on palliative and end-of-life care, it is no coincidence that you feel a resonance with some ...

Nanette Milne Con

I was interested in Dr Calderwood’s comments about commissioning in the NHS in England. The comparison here would be with GP fundholding, which, given that m...

The Convener Lab

We wish you well with this and the committee understands what you are saying, because we have touched on that value base in a number of pieces of work, inclu...

Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab) Lab

The report seems to focus on doctors. One of the quotes in the report is: “I want to start a conversation among doctors about changing healthcare.” It seem...