Hansard

We are still exploring such matters. As innovations come forward and improvements are made in weight management treatment, we must explore them, but we must do that in a clinically safe way.

We will also be supporting two pharmacogenetic programmes. Pharmacogenetics looks at how an individual’s genetic variation affects their response to specific drugs. About 30 per cent of people have a genetic variation that means that they do not respond to a drug that is commonly prescribed to patients who have recently suffered a stroke. The purpose of that drug is to reduce the risk of a secondary stroke, which can often be debilitating. NHS Tayside has developed a pathway to allow such patients to be tested and given the most effective treatment.

Over the next two years, we will invest £1.1 million to extend that innovation across Scotland. Once it has been fully adopted, it will impact about 20,000 patients per year, with an estimated 6,000 being moved to an alternative treatment, which will reduce pressure on our rehabilitation and social care services and the likelihood that those patients will suffer further harm. The programme will begin in October, and it will be rolled out to all territorial boards within 12 months.

We will also use genetic testing to improve care for our youngest citizens. About one in 500 babies are born with a genetic variation that could result in permanent hearing loss if they are treated with a common emergency antibiotic. Over the next two years, we will invest £800,000 to establish a pathway across Scotland that will use a point-of-care test to quickly identify whether critically ill babies have the genetic variation in question.

Once that programme has been fully adopted, more than 3,000 newborn babies a year will be tested, and those who require an alternative antibiotic will be provided with one. That will avoid such babies suffering unnecessary harm and will reduce the pressure on an NHS that will no longer need to provide them with additional care and support. The programme will begin in October and will be rolled out to all territorial boards within 18 months.

Patient safety is and will remain of paramount importance as we look to adopt new technologies in the NHS. I recently visited NHS Lothian to see its early implementation of the NHS Scotland scan for safety programme, which uses point-of-care scanning to provide rapid electronic traceability for implantable medical devices. Such scanning enables near instantaneous tracing of devices in the event of a safety concern.

If we are to take full advantage of the innovations that are emerging through ANIA and achieve the vision that was set out in the First Minister’s speech, we need to take swifter action in moving towards a digital first approach to reform.

We are already seeing the impact of that approach in the NHS. Exactly five years ago this week, we set out to the Parliament our plans to accelerate our Near Me service in support of remote video-based access to appointments. At that time, fewer than 20,000 appointments had been delivered remotely. Now, Near Me is embedded in nearly 2,000 services across more than 100 organisations and has been used for well over 2.5 million appointments.

I previously informed the Parliament of the First Minister’s commitment to launch an online app from December this year, starting with a cohort of people in NHS Lanarkshire. That will be the start of a five-year development of a digital front door to Scotland’s health and social care services. Health and care data will be presented digitally by connecting to a range of new and existing digital systems in primary, secondary and social care. That information will then be presented to the person who needs it in an accessible, understandable and inclusive way. Over time, the functionality of the app will be extended to include social care and community health. That is crucial to breaking down silos and delivering person-centred care. Full details of our plan to roll that out across the country will be finalised in the summer.

Now is the moment to grasp the transformational potential of scientific and technological innovation to improve our health and social care systems and the crucial services that they deliver for the people of Scotland. I am privileged to have opened this debate, and I welcome the contributions and thoughtfulness to come.

I move,

That the Parliament believes that there are significant health and economic benefits in supporting and adopting innovation in the health and social care service; recognises the urgent and critical need for health and social care recovery and renewal to meet the changing demands on the NHS whilst protecting its founding principles of remaining in the hands of the public and free at the point of need; agrees that reform can and must be accelerated by scientific and technological innovation and that rapid national adoption of research-proven innovations are essential to drive further improvements for patients, and welcomes partnership working between Scotland’s world class academic institutions, life sciences and technology businesses, the public sector and the NHS to improve health outcomes and support a thriving economy.