Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Maggie Chapman for her question and for advocating on behalf of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, whose representatives I meet on a regular basis. After my most recent meeting, I instructed officials to have more in-depth dialogue with the college as to how we can ensure, using the whole-system basis that Maggie Chapman highlights, that the issues that we face with accident and emergency—which are driven not by accident and emergency but by the wider system—can be resolved at the same pace at which emergency medicine staff respond to issues.
I am conscious of the performance issues that Maggie Chapman raises regarding NHS Grampian, and that is part of the reason why the board is currently escalated. There is a new leadership team there, and indeed a new site director at Aberdeen royal infirmary, whom I have met. I am heartened not just by the grip and control that I see from the new leadership team, at both a site level and a board level, but by the whole-system collaboration that I want and need to see, in both city and shire, so that the issues that are driving the problems faced by the Scottish Ambulance Service may be resolved.