Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am capable of many things, convener, but that level of detail is not in my gift. I will be happy to provide the information later.

I am going to attempt the impossible, which is to try to get the committee to keep the petition open. As you rightly pointed out, the Wishaw neonatal unit was the best neonatal unit in the country—not Scotland, but the whole of the United Kingdom—in 2022. For some reason, the Scottish Government then decided that it should close.

You are quite right to reference an earlier report that was presented to the Scottish Government, which recommended that there should be three to five neonatal units to cover Scotland, instead of the seven or eight that we have now. Nobody disagrees with that. What we disagree with is that the Scottish Government opted to go for three units—one in Glasgow, one in Edinburgh and one in Aberdeen—and that Lanarkshire, the third-largest health board, which covers a population of 655,000 people, would have its neonatal unit removed. I have to say, in contradiction to what the minister contends, that the evidence was partial. There was no voice from NHS Lanarkshire sitting around the decision-making table, but there were representatives from Glasgow and Lothian.

The thing that we need to hold on to is that the Wishaw neonatal unit does not only deal with mums and babies from Lanarkshire; it deals with those covered by Greater Glasgow and Clyde, because the two Glasgow units that are currently there do not have enough capacity to cope with the mums and babies from Glasgow. Lanarkshire plays a key role for the whole of Scotland. It has been said that when the Wishaw neonatal unit closes and mums and babies cannot go to there, to Glasgow or, potentially, to Edinburgh, Aberdeen could be the default.

We think that there is not enough capacity in Glasgow to cope, so you would be putting the sickest babies in ambulances to make the two-and-a-half to three-hour journey to Aberdeen to be seen. It is entirely ridiculous, not just because of the risk, but because the sickest babies are likely to be in hospital for long periods. What happens to the mums and families who are rooted in their community in Lanarkshire? How do they spend time with the baby up in Aberdeen? That would be impossible and impractical.

It is not only the families who are very pragmatic in resisting these changes; it is the clinicians as well. The committee saw that very powerfully in its visit to the unit.

The solution, if I can posit one, is that we should have four units. It is common sense—it is not rocket science. I wonder whether we could invite the committee to write to the Government to suggest that it pauses any changes, that there should be a fully independent review and that it should consult the clinicians and the families affected in more than just a tokenistic way. Perhaps the committee could even invite the minister to come before the committee.

That would be a valuable conclusion to the committee’s visit. To be frank, if we do not keep the petition open, the Government will downgrade the neonatal unit between now and May, and that will not benefit anybody.

Absolutely. Not you, convener—the Government.

Well, what can I add to what you have already said, convener? You have been tireless in pursuing this petition, and you, the former health secretary Alex Neil and my colleague Neil Findlay campaigned alongside the mesh-injured women and championed their cause. Clearly, you continue to do that.

I concede that the Government has taken some action. There is a specialist clinic and access to mesh removal abroad, but waiting lists remain too long, and some women are still waiting. For me, the issue is the continuing use of mesh, whether it is in hernia operations or others.

I am persuaded by your efforts and by the response from the petitioners that we should keep the petition open, because the information is outdated. It is clear that your meeting with the First Minister was very welcome, but it throws up some gaps that I hope the committee will explore further.

I suggest that we keep the petition open, because the job is not yet quite done. On that basis, I commend the committee to do exactly that.

Patient experience tells me that that is not happening on the ground in a real way. When might we expect that to make a difference that people can see?

I very much agree with what the cabinet secretary said, but where is the evidence that that is happening on the ground? It is not happening in my area or in other areas. How do we stop people entering the system when they are experiencing a greater degree of crisis and trying to access services that are either not there or under such strain that they cannot cope with what is coming at them?

I think that everybody would support having community link workers in deep-end practices and elsewhere. However, the truth is that, because there was not a dedicated income stream, Glasgow ended up cutting the number of community link workers that it had. West Dunbartonshire did, too, and I am sure that that was the case in other areas as well.

How do we ensure that the things that you are describing are actually there on the ground, when there is not a dedicated funding stream to support them?

Okay. GP appointments are the key diagnostic and treatment pathway. However, people tell us all the time about the rush to secure an appointment. They have to phone at 8 am and then they are in a queue. They are lucky if they are number 2 or 3 in the queue, and they hold on; sometimes, they hang up without securing an appointment. What are you doing to change that?

I recognise the cabinet secretary’s intention to optimise planning capacity, but the reality is that that is not being delivered in practice. I will give two illustrations. First, waiting times in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are some of the most significant in the country and the Golden Jubilee hospital is on its doorstep. Beyond the planned arrangement that is made at the start of the year, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde seems reluctant to pass people on to the Golden Jubilee, despite its having the capacity to take them.

Secondly, waiting times for gynaecology, diagnostics and treatment in Glasgow are incredibly long—dangerously so—but, in Lanarkshire, they are keeping to time. Why can we not have more co-operation across health board boundaries, which seem to act as a barrier to money flowing between them? I always thought that there was one national health service; it might be time to have the money follow the patient.

I want to raise two issues: mental health services and GP services. There is a petition from Karen McKeown, who lost her partner Luke to suicide. In the week before his death, he tried to access services up to eight times. In my area and across much of Scotland, crisis out-of-hours services are patchy. Waiting lists for mental health services are far too long, given that many people will go into crisis quite quickly. Given the increasing crisis for people who are seeking mental health services, will the cabinet secretary undertake a review to improve access, as raised in the petition?