Meeting of the Parliament 05 November 2025 [Draft]
I will try to come back to Pam Duncan-Glancy. I want to make progress, but I also want to ensure that colleagues have the opportunity to have their say.
I will not repeat all the points that I set out in my statement last week, but I want to be clear from the outset that the Government remains absolutely open and willing to do everything necessary to improve the services that women and babies use across Scotland. I have been very clear with NHS Lothian about the urgent improvements that I expect to see before the end of this year, and the First Minister reiterated the importance of boards responding timeously to any concerns that were raised about maternity services when we met NHS chief executives last week.
Members will be aware that I intend to convene a meeting with NHS Lothian’s chief executive and MSPs from across the chamber so that they can ask directly any questions that they might have. I hope that we can use the debate to agree the need for members of all parties—the Government included—to work collaboratively together to bring about the improvements that we all want to see.
The Government’s amendment, in my name, is intended to set out clearly that we are open to a wider national review of maternity services. However, a series of local inspections of every maternity unit in Scotland is already under way. It is right that those inspections should continue at pace so that we can make immediate improvements, instead of initiating a review in place of those, which would be potentially lengthy and require us to wait for the findings to identify where changes can be made.