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Thank you for acknowledging the importance of listening to people with lived experience. In the role that I carry out, which is focused on public health and women’s health, the best support that we can get is from people who have experienced trauma and from those who have had positive experiences in healthcare. It is important to acknowledge that.

The evidence session that you had with Steven Short from the Save a Life for Scotland partnership, Kirsty Morrison from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and Kym Kestell from the British Heart Foundation was really important, because you were able to tease out a lot of detailed information from them on the work that has been going on regarding out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

I represent Argyll and Bute, which has a wide footprint and fewer urban areas. When I was first elected, I heard about decisions on the location of defibrillators and the volume of them on islands. There was, I think, one per 1,000 of the population there, which, in theory, meant that Mull would have only three. In considering the expanse of Mull, the community recognised that they needed an awful lot more defibrillators, so they did a lot of community fundraising. I recognise that that has happened across Scotland. I commend the support that we get from the British Heart Foundation in helping people to purchase defibrillators for their communities.

It is clear that one size does not fit all, as came through in the evidence that you heard from Steven Short and Kym Kestell. PADmap is a great help in allowing us to focus on where there is need. Kym Kestell stated that people who live in the more deprived areas of Scotland are more likely to experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, so there is a need for defibrillators in those areas.

You specifically asked about what the Scottish Government is doing. As you heard from Steven Short, we are active partners in Save a Life for Scotland. As I noted in my opening remarks, as a result of the recent meeting that Save a Life for Scotland had with Rodger and Lesley Hill, we received a submission from them, which we are currently considering. We will make decisions on the best way for the Scottish Government to ensure that we have the right placement of defibs across all of Scotland’s vast and beautiful geography.

I absolutely agree that there is no intransigence. Davy Russell pressed me on the targets, which are there because we expect to meet them. However, as knowledge changes, we need to be flexible enough to ensure that we provide the people of Scotland with the right support for their health.

We usually tweet and do other things during awareness-raising campaigns, but I am very happy to take away that suggestion. Members also have access to the PADmap tool, and it is possible to tweet the URL for that.

It contains additional information on inherited cardiac conditions.

As I said, the UK NSC is an independent body. Our chief medical officer is represented on it, along with the other three chief medical officers. I think that the fact that we have written to the UK NSC emphasises the Scottish Government’s interest in its work timetable. As I said, however, the UK NSC makes decisions based on robust evidence that has been peer reviewed, and we need to ensure that that process is followed properly and correctly.

I am sure that Mr Ewing is aware of the impressive and thought-provoking time for reflection contribution that we heard from Cameron McGerr in the chamber a few weeks ago. I happened to be sitting next to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. The three of us have written to Cameron. I was hoping to have heard where the matter had got to, but we are hoping that a group of us, if not all three of us, will be able to meet Cameron to hear more from him about the importance of ensuring that young children receive CPR training, as he recognised.

I have also had the privilege of meeting a father and son. The son was able to save his father’s life because of the CPR training that he had received in early secondary and later in secondary school. I recognise the importance of that training. As you will appreciate, education does not sit in my portfolio, but I am content to speak further with the Cabinet Secretary for Education about the issue. We can come back to the committee once we have met Cameron McGerr.

There is quite a lot in that question. Kym Kestell from the British Heart Foundation Scotland gave the committee good evidence on the research that the BHF is doing, which the Scottish Government is very pleased to support. We also have the Chief Scientist Office, which is in charge of research into health in Scotland, and the chief scientist is very open to receiving applications from organisations and universities to undertake specific research into heart conditions. Alongside the data, the research that we can undertake in Scotland, given our population, is really important.

That important question ties into a question that you asked at the previous meeting as well. I know that you recognise that local authorities know their communities and who the key drivers are in different parts of their communities, whether that is the more deprived areas or the less deprived ones. Partnership working is definitely happening, and COSLA is part of the Save a Life for Scotland partnership, as you know.

Another important thing, which Steven Short touched on, is that businesses are often willing to get involved in supporting fundraising, as is the British Heart Foundation. As I said, we are looking at a paper that was worked on at the most recent Save a Life for Scotland meeting, and we will be taking decisions based on that.

I absolutely agree. The targets will have been set with clinical advice and guidance. Targets should be a stretch, because we want people in Scotland to be healthy and to maintain healthy lifestyles. I know from the people who I have met who are living with stroke that some have had better journeys than others. That is how we learn. It is through sharing those stories widely among MSPs and more broadly across Scotland that change can happen. I was very heartened by the meeting that I chaired last week, because I heard a group of people who have the same determination to reach those targets.

We need to be aware that the FAST acronym is very well known. Bringing in the “BE”—the balance and the eyes—could produce some false positives, which we would be concerned might impact on clinicians’ ability to treat. That is why, in the additional training resource, we have been very clear that we are focusing on FAST, but we are also ensuring that people are aware that there could be other symptoms. The evidence and the discussions that I have had with the Stroke Association and Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland show that their views tie in with that.