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What is the vacancy rate for GPs who take calls during your busy periods?

I think that the longest time for which people were waiting on a phone to get help and advice was over two hours. What do you feel you could have done differently, looking back at December last year, that you will take forward to this year’s December to try to avoid the same thing happening again?

What is the learning that you have taken?

I will speak briefly on amendment 27, and I thank the General Medical Council for its input on this subject.

Amendment 27, in the name of Tess White, would amend section 15, which deals with the confidentiality of information, and permits a disclosure of information to “professional healthcare regulatory bodies”. That would further enhance patient safety, because there might be circumstances in which such information points towards a potential risk but in which it is only through further investigation and/or correlation with other information that is held by the regulator that the scale of the risk becomes apparent.

I note that Carol Mochan’s amendment 26 takes a similar approach to Tess White’s amendment 27 in adding the Health and Safety Executive to the list of bodies. Our amendment 27 uses the term “professional healthcare regulatory bodies”, which is a phrase that includes all regulators that are overseen by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, including the Health and Safety Executive. Our amendment therefore covers the Health and Safety Executive.

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a practising national health service general practitioner.

Amendment 11, in the name of Tess White, is a probing amendment to facilitate debate about the length of time that a commissioner should serve in a single term. The amendment would reduce that period from eight years, which is currently in the bill, to five years. As a point of comparison, the Patient Safety Commissioner for England is appointed for a term of three years, with the possibility of a second term.

I note from the bill’s policy memorandum that the period of appointment was chosen because it is in line with the terms and conditions of other parliamentary commissioners. Those were standardised 13 years ago by the Scottish Parliamentary Commissions and Commissioners etc (Scotland) Act 2010. In the intervening period, the commissioner system has not been substantively evaluated. Meanwhile, as the Finance and Public Administration Committee and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body have highlighted, the number of commissioners could rise from seven to as many as 14. That would be a significant and expensive extension of the public sector. It should follow that the tenure in office is considered as a question of good governance.

I recognise that the bill includes provision for early termination and gives the SPCB some flexibility in the area. Nevertheless, the period in post that is provided in statute matters, because commissioners need to consistently demonstrate that they are serving the public interest as well as the public purse. I will welcome input from the minister and other members on that point.

I move amendment 11.

Given the minister’s reassurance, I will not move the amendment.

Amendment 17 not moved.

Amendment 18 moved—[Sandesh Gulhane].

I am keen to see whether we can facilitate a discussion between now and stage 3 about where the issue might sit but, for now, I seek to withdraw amendment 11.

Amendment 11, by agreement, withdrawn.

I disagree. What we have in the bill at the moment is a strategic plan, which looks at where the commissioner wants to go, and we have some annual reporting. It seems to me to be very sensible that a public body should say what its plan for a year is, and that it should then report against that plan. That is what I would expect most public bodies to do, and I think that the public expect public bodies to do that, so that people are aware of where their money is being spent and how the body—in this case, the commissioner—is going about their job.

I therefore press amendment 12.

We are happy to work with the minister, so I will not move amendment 19.

Amendment 19 not moved.

Section 3 agreed to.

After section 3

Amendment 20 moved—[Sandesh Gulhane].

Amendments 12, 13 and 20, on reviewing the commissioner’s work, are all related. The main amendment is amendment 20, which would insert a new section on performance monitoring. It would require the commissioner to consult the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, the advisory group that is outlined in the bill, as well as the most appropriate parliamentary committee, on a set of performance standards against which the commissioner believes their performance should be judged. Amendment 12 requires that a review of the commissioner’s performance as assessed against those standards be included in the annual report that is to be laid before the Scottish Parliament.

Amendment 13 requires that the most appropriate parliamentary committee must propose a debate on the annual report.

When the minister’s predecessor came before the committee to give evidence on the bill, I inquired how the commissioner will be evaluated to ensure that the office-holder is doing what we expect them to be doing. Let us not forget that it came across loud and clear during stage 1 that the public will have high expectations of the commissioner. The minister and her official said that

“There will be a strong role for Parliament in scrutinising what the commissioner does”

and that Parliament will be

“the primary means of holding the commissioner to account through its responsibility to the people of Scotland.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 14 March 2023; c 3-6.]

I welcome that the commissioner will be independent of Government, and that the line of accountability for the role will be to the Scottish Parliament. However, I would like to see a tangible set of standards to better facilitate scrutiny of the commissioner’s performance by parliamentarians. In so doing, we will not just be ensuring that the patient safety commissioner serves the public interest to the highest possible standard; we will be looking at the effectiveness and value of the commissioner as part of a system that is likely to expand in the future.

Amendment 32 requires that an appropriate parliamentary committee must examine how the commissioner and the existing patient safety landscape are working together. As Baroness Cumberlege emphasised in her evidence to the committee during stage 1, the patient safety commissioner is supposed to be the “golden thread” running through a patient safety landscape that is already saturated. That is the intention, but is it possible to deliver that? Organisations such as the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman have raised concerns about the potential for duplication.

Once the office-holder has had time to bed in, it will be appropriate to review how the relationship is working in practice. I should add that the proposed new section includes a provision that examines how patient safety organisations have implemented the commissioner’s recommendations, which is an issue that was highlighted during stage 1.

Very little evaluation or research has been carried out on commissioners. The Scottish Conservatives support the creation of a patient safety commissioner, but we also want to consider the detail carefully, especially that which relates to the relationship between the commissioner and the Scottish Parliament. I would be happy to work with the minister and her team to ensure that we get the approach right.

I move amendment 12.