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Jackie Baillie will appreciate that equipment does not cease to function as soon as it reaches 10 years old. However, we know that equipment does not have an infinite lifespan, and life-cycle replacement planning is on-going. That includes a radiotherapy replacement programme, which is supported by annual funding, including £18.5 million this year. A further £19 million has been allocated for equipment investment, as part of additional funding that is being provided to the portfolio at the spring budget revision, to support the replacement of ultrasound and X-ray machines and other imaging equipment.

The 2025-26 budget provides a 5 per cent uplift to boards’ core capital allocations to support maintenance and replacement programmes. A further £30 million supports priority equipment replacement, based on boards’ assessment of need.

I believe that I already answered the second part of Jackie Baillie’s question in my first answer about the resources that we are allocating to boards, which take the decisions. It is also for boards to make a risk-based analysis of the appropriateness of the equipment that they have—including parts, availability and maintenance—and of its reliability and productivity. We make our assessments on that basis.

On the first part of her question, Jackie Baillie will know that we are already seeing improvements in diagnostic waiting lists. Quarter 4 of 2024 had the fourth-largest improvement since the pandemic. At the end of December, the waiting list had reduced by more than 18,000 compared with the end of 2024. Significant progress is being made in diagnostic testing, and there is more to come with the budget—which Jackie Baillie did not vote for.

That is critical. The experience of the necessary closure of the eye pavilion is an example of where there has been better communication, both through the Government and through the health board, to patients and to MSPs. I was involved in the site visit to the eye pavilion with Sarah Boyack and others so that there was transparency as to the necessity of that decision having to be taken.

It is not just me saying that we should not underestimate the impact that poor communication can have on patients and their families; that is what the interim inquiry report says. We must take that seriously. Where there are improvements to be made, we will continue to look at them, including by learning lessons from live cases such as the one that Sarah Boyack raises.

I think that I have set out where the process can be improved to avoid such issues arising in the first place. The process involving the infrastructure board and NHS Scotland assure improves that position. We are obviously interacting with boards, including NHS Lothian, to make sure that the recommendations are understood and the lessons about communications and process are learned so that the issues that Ben Macpherson has raised in relation to infrastructure and the impact on his constituents can be properly addressed, and so that we have a better process in future for the people whom he represents.

To bridge the gap between what Brian Whittle mentioned in his intervention and what Paul Sweeney said in his response, I point to the Techscaler network, the NHS test bed programme and the integration of ANIA.

On the point about how we mobilise innovation to support the population, I encourage Paul Sweeney to look again at the digital dermatology programme, because that has the potential to accelerate productivity massively, as I set out in my speech, but also to improve patient care. I wonder whether the member has engaged with that yet. It is a clear example of the innovation that is going on in the health service.

I thank Clare Haughey for her question. Obviously, it is critically important to me, as it is to the public, that NHS boards acknowledge not only that their services exist to treat patients, but that patients and their families should always be given clear information about those services and their care. Where boards fail in that duty, we need to ensure that that is rectified.

We regularly meet our NHS boards’ communications teams to provide leadership, to collaborate and to agree common approaches to communicating information among NHS health boards and across NHS Scotland.

We will continue to listen carefully to patients and families who are involved in the inquiry, and to others further afield. I will work with the health boards to ensure that we all learn lessons and put them at the heart of the decisions that are taken on patients and their families.

We will respond formally to the inquiry’s 11 recommendations in due course. In that response, we will set out some of the progress that will already have been made against some of the recommendations—some of that will be wrapped up in the work of NHS Scotland assure. As Lorna Slater asked for, we will be able to track progress against the recommendations and anything else that comes in from the remainder of the inquiry in relation to the sites in Edinburgh and in Glasgow.

There are a number of issues in Miles Briggs’s question, for which I am grateful, and I am grateful to him for his recognition of the role that whistleblowers play.

I have been absolutely clear—as, I believe, my predecessors were—on the culture that I expect within the health service around supporting people who come forward with concerns before the matter gets to the point of whistleblower status. There are very clear processes and protocols in place to support whistleblowers who come forward with their concerns, and I have a very clear expectation of how those are handled, both regarding the seriousness that is applied in ensuring that systems are safe, and regarding transparency in the public communications that Mr Briggs mentioned. As I have set out, we are working with our boards to ensure that that can be realised.

Brian Whittle has neatly pre-empted the paragraphs in my speech about how I want us to foster innovation to de-risk some of the investment decisions that are being taken, and how we can make sure that there is genuine partnership between industry, academia and the health service to ensure that what is being done is commercially viable and most applicable to our health and social care service. We want to get the economic benefit and, most importantly, the benefit for patients. I will speak about that in just a second.

To embed the work of the triple helix, we have established three regional innovation hubs. Together, they represent all 14 territorial NHS boards and provide support to those who want to test and develop new technologies in the NHS. The partnerships are already trialling the use of drones to deliver medications with a short shelf life and the use of artificial intelligence to improve chest X-ray screening, and they are working with CivTech to improve access to treatment for menopause.

However, we can no longer afford to have only islands of excellence in our health service; we must universalise the best service through the national adoption of proven innovations. That is why, in partnership with the NHS, we have established the accelerated national innovation adoption pathway. That brings together expertise from across our national health boards to identify proven innovations, produce robust business cases and, if those innovations are approved, support our territorial health boards to adopt them at pace across Scotland.

The pathway’s first programme was the creation of a national onboarding service for closed-loop systems. Closed-loop systems are an incredible asset for people living with type 1 diabetes. They not only improve sugar control and reduce the risk of long-term complications but remove a lot of the burden that people living with type 1 diabetes face on a day-to-day basis. Last year, we committed to supporting all children living with type 1 diabetes to access that technology and to increasing the provision for adults. We are on track to deliver closed-loop systems to more than 2,000 people in this financial year.

That was followed by our £1.8 million investment in the ANIA digital dermatology programme. Too many people in Scotland are waiting for a dermatology out-patient appointment. Launched in December, the pathway enables general practitioners to take photographs of a patient’s skin issues and securely attach those images to a dermatology referral. Evidence suggests that that will allow about half of those patients to be returned to their GP, with advice or reassurance, without the need for an in-person appointment with a consultant. Although some people will be fast tracked for testing based on assessment at digital triage, the programme will help to reduce waiting lists and to provide assurance to patients who are worried about their condition. For those with skin cancer, it will also reduce the time before they receive treatment and increase their chances of a positive outcome. The programme is already available to more than 400 general practices across six territorial health boards, and it will be rolled out across Scotland by the spring.

We must maintain momentum. That is why I am announcing today that the Scottish Government will commit a further £6.4 million to support the next two ANIA programmes. We will invest £4.5 million over three years to create a new national digital intensive weight management programme, which will significantly expand our weight management capacity and support 3,000 people who have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. We expect that more than a third of people will achieve remission at the end of their first year on the programme, with a majority benefiting from a clinically significant average weight loss of 10 per cent.

Reducing the number of people living with type 2 diabetes reduces pressure on the health service and has life-changing implications for those whom we can help to achieve and sustain remission. A diagnosis of type 2 diabetes at 40 lowers life expectancy by about 10 years. The first patients will be recruited on to the programme in January.

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.