Hansard

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I congratulate you on your new role, and I thank the cabinet secretary for her speech and congratulate her on her new role.

As this is my first speech in the Parliament, I thank the constituents of Mid Scotland and Fife who have belief in a new approach and voted for Reform, and I thank all those who campaigned with us across Scotland. I wish to reassure all residents in the region, regardless of who they voted for, that I will do my very best to assist constituents when they need it. I would really like to thank the parliamentary staff, who have been wonderful in helping all 64 new MSPs.

I also thank those members who, regardless of political differences, have been pleasant and welcoming. They know who they are—or perhaps it is more accurate to say that those who have not been pleasant and welcoming know who they are. That is okay. Most politicians here have said, “We’ll work together with everybody, as the voters have made it clear that they want that to happen.” Some politicians seem to be struggling a bit more with that, but we in Reform have an invisible shield. We are used to being vilified by a tiny fraction of society, so a few people behaving childishly by walking out of the chamber during a member’s maiden speech or turning their backs does not really faze us. It will not stop us talking common sense and calling out nonsense. I am grateful to those who have been welcoming—which is, of course, most people in the room.

There is a lot of talk just now about the reputation of politicians. Perhaps members might consider how actions such as walking out of the chamber because they do not like what is being said look to the general public and how they affect the reputation of not only the whole Parliament but the individual. I remember being in the public gallery about 20 years ago, when a members’ business debate on the illness ME came up. I will come back to that later. The then cabinet secretary got up and walked out, as seems to be the custom with members’ business debates, leaving his deputy. There were many affected people and carers in the gallery who had made huge efforts to be there and who, not knowing that that was the custom, were shocked. My mother-in-law said, “I’ll never vote for him again.” Knowing my mother-in-law, I am sure that she never did. So, it is worth remembering that everybody is looking all the time.

That debate was the start of my surprising journey to being here today. At that time, a cross-party group on ME was set up, a petition was submitted to the Public Petitions Committee and a Scottish Government working group was set up. However, 20 years on, I came back to campaigning for sufferers of ME only to find that almost nothing had changed. Indeed, another petition with almost the same wording had been lodged in 2018 by a young woman who had been struck down by the disease.

The Parliament cannot be just a place where important things are discussed and admirable policies are announced. There must be concrete action and identifiable, positive change in people’s lives. There need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound—SMART—outcomes. I would never have thought that I would be using business jargon, and my family will certainly laugh, but such an approach is necessary. Plans are great, but only if they are put into practice.

Of course, laughing is better than crying, which is what many sufferers and carers have done over the years when they have seen their hopes of progress on healthcare policy on difficult issues, the responsibility for which lies here, run into the sand.

That leads me to the lack of ambition in the motion, although I recognise that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care has announced a lot of new initiatives, which are welcome. Of course, it is only right to recognise the work of the NHS and care staff. We should never forget what they did during the Covid pandemic and the legacy that that has left for the staff and the public. However, I suspect that staff want more than is offered in the motion. They would like their jobs to be made a bit easier by their being able to help patients earlier and to say, “Yes, we have a bed for you,” or “Yes, we can give you that knee replacement soon,” or “Yes, we can help you with adequate care so that you can remain in your home.”

Working conditions are certainly among the things that need to be looked at. By “delivering the best care”, do we mean staff working a 12-hour day routinely so that they are on a four-day week? I do not know, but I would like to see somebody giving the data on that. Who wants to be the patient who is attended by a doctor or nurse who is in the 12th hour of their fourth day?

Training, recruiting and retaining more qualified staff is essential, but I have met fully trained nurses who cannot get a job although locum use is high. Perhaps that is because they need flexibility in their working hours or—very likely, if they are in a rural area—they need accommodation near the hospital or surgery. In the past, there was tied accommodation for essential workers. I come from Caithness, so I know the problem of staffing Caithness maternity services, and I was glad that the cabinet secretary mentioned that issue. There are harrowing accounts of women giving birth in ambulances at the side of the road. Would the NHS owning a few houses help to solve that problem? We have to look at different actions. How have we come to think that such situations are acceptable in the name of finance?

There are many reasons why Scots are often frustrated with and angry about the NHS and care services. A major one, which has been referred to already, is that of waiting lists. I was glad to hear the cabinet secretary say that there are many plans to reduce waiting lists. Of course, the Government can say that waiting lists have come down, but that does not mean that they are acceptable when what they have come down from is the record high that they reached after the Covid pandemic and they are still not anywhere near pre-Covid levels.

Improvement is very welcome, and we should welcome it. A much-needed start has been made, and staff are to be congratulated on their considerable efforts. Nevertheless, people are still waiting too long for action that will alleviate painful conditions or treat potentially fatal illnesses, including cancer. I therefore welcome the cabinet secretary’s announcement on the cancer plan. I know that the organisation Young Lives vs Cancer asked the Scottish Government to commit to a new, up-to-date national cancer strategy for children and young people, but I do not think that she mentioned that—I apologise if it was on her list.

The Government often talks a good game, to use the metaphor of the moment, but it often fails to deliver. It often says that it is hampered by Westminster austerity. However, the fact is that the Scottish NHS budget has had an average 6 per cent increase every year for 25 years of this Parliament. However, in many areas, Scotland has recovered from the pandemic less quickly than England. The number of consultations per consultant is an example of that.

According to data from the think tank Enlighten, 93 per cent of Scots believe that the NHS needs to be reformed, and we in Reform are committed to that. Although we are committed to a service that is free at the point of use, we believe that a fresh approach is needed.

I trained as a veterinary surgeon, so I believe in diagnosing the problem. When the cabinet secretary says that she does not support a health and social care commission, I am disappointed, because we need a good diagnosis of what is happening. We need to look at a number of different issues, including training and retention of the workforce and joining up health and social care. Without knowing the detail of what happened, I am sorry that the Government’s plans to bring health and social care together were not put into practice. One obvious issue that needs looking at is bed blocking, but I do not think that I heard about that in the cabinet secretary’s speech.

What does the current state of the NHS mean to people in practice? One area is the inadequate care that people with chronic health conditions receive. I come back to my family’s involvement with ME. Because I am a vet, I looked a lot at research on the topic. In some ways, encouragingly, that is coming on. Sadly, however, the reports are that doctors are not doing much more to help those people. They leave the patient feeling helpless and unsupported. When I was in that space, I used to think that, if I went to an appointment and came away without one of us being in tears or absolutely furious, that was not too bad.

We must have specialist nurses and doctors for chronic illnesses. There has been only one specialist ME nurse in Scotland in the 20 years since that debate in the Parliament, which some current members attended. We had one nurse—Keith Anderson, who, sadly, died prematurely. I would like his family to know that we recognise his dedication and the wonderful care that he gave to thousands of ME patients and, latterly, long Covid patients.

I return to my personal starting point in the Parliament. After two decades, on just one common, painful, distressing and often lifelong condition, the result is that we are no further forward. That must change. In addition, we must see that, after Covid, there are tens of thousands more such people. I will be delighted to join the Covid group and the medical inequalities group. However, carers are dealing with the bulk of things.

The cabinet secretary will be pleased to know that I do not lay all of that at the Government’s door. In fact, the medical professions need to be brought to the table with patients and carers. We have the latest research on some of the illnesses, and mandatory continuing professional development is required. The Government should look at what medical research it is funding and monitor that closely for outcomes. A commission could steer the NHS through those changes, and I ask members to support my amendment.

I move amendment S7M-00228.1, to leave out from “including long waits” and insert:

“; further recognises that 93% of people in Scotland think that the NHS needs to be reformed whilst continuing to deliver services free at the point of use, and calls on the Scottish Government to set up an independent, Scottish Health and Social Care Commission, comprising experts, staff and service users to review health and social care delivery, produce a workforce plan to train and retain more doctors, nurses and social care professionals in Scotland, propose solutions for delayed discharge, and actions to streamline frontline services through greater integration between community health and social care services and local GP surgeries.”