Seòmar agus comataidhean

Of course.

I start by thanking Miles Briggs for bringing such an important debate to the chamber. As other members have done, I thank him and Monica Lennon for their personal letters.

I also thank Lucy, Holly, Zoe, Fiona, Peter, Andy, Gerry, Pauline, Irene, Caroline, Ann, Philip and Lorraine—I hope that I have not missed anyone—for sharing their heart-wrenching stories of love, loss and hope for the future.

It is unfortunate that we require to have this debate, but it is a reality that we must do so, because judgment and stigma continue, as we have heard. If our approach to changing that does not include accepting where we have gone wrong in the past and where we are not getting it quite right now, we are doing a disservice to those who already have become, or who could become, dependent, and their friends, their families and their communities. I say to all my colleagues in the Parliament that we must listen to their stories and seek to understand how and why stigma affects people and their loved ones while they are navigating an often tremendously difficult time in their lives.

I am not going to repeat the statistics that we have heard today, but every individual who has lost their life through alcohol or drug dependency is a loss before their time, and it must always be remembered that their friends and family have lost a loved one. Every life lost is an absolute tragedy.

This is a public health emergency and it must be treated in that way. That includes our being respectful and compassionate to others. The point about the way in which the media present the issue is important, and I call on all parliamentarians to challenge such language, because we know that it affects people.

Amendment 6 adds two additional bodies to the information-sharing requirements. I understand that the minister was not in favour of the amendment at stage 2, but, again, similar to my other amendments, I believe that it merely attempts to improve relationships and co-operation in the sharing of information.

At the evidence-taking stage and in the stage 1 report, although they understood that it might not always be appropriate, professional regulators were of the view that the lists as outlined in section 15(2)(d) could have been extended to include professional regulators to allow information sharing in situations

“where there is a concern that would be suitable for us to follow through on and investigate.”

Regulators recognise that it should be only when appropriate. As I said at stage 2, I found that suggestion to be reasonable, and I maintain that position. I urge the minister to think about that suggestion, because it would allow a broader scope of the provision of the information sharing that we want to be included in the amendment.

As we know, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman stated that the current list is fairly narrow. I have said previously that it is not our intention to extend the list beyond manageable levels, nor to extend it in a way that might impede healthcare professionals’ willingness to be frank and open with the commissioner. As the minister suggested, that is her difficulty with the amendment.

The amendment takes solid steps towards ensuring information sharing and duty of co-operation. I had hoped that the minister would accept the amendment in the way that it was offered, as an enhancement of information sharing.

I thank my colleagues on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for their work on the bill, and I express my equal gratitude to the committee clerks and the legislation team for their on-going assistance.

We must thank the families and patients who engaged closely with us in what were often very difficult times for them. Jackson Carlaw put that important point eloquently. Those families and patients rightly expect much from us, and they deserve every bit of the time that we have put into getting maximum effect from the bill.

My party supports the bill. We are long-standing advocates of the general principles of the bill and we view reform in the area as a top priority. Patient safety is of paramount importance for the future of our NHS, and we are long overdue tangible changes that reflect that.

We all know of a great many examples across Scotland in which a failure to consider the overall state of patient safety has led to loss of life and incalculable damage to families. The bill is a step forward in giving the issue the attention that it deserves, but it is only a step: it is by no means a fix-all, but it provides formal recognition of a change in the direction of travel, which we can all welcome.

Others have made this point: if the Government truly wished to continue along that path, it would have had to give proper status to all aspects of Milly’s law, which would have given bereaved families much-needed new rights. It is unfortunate that, at stage 2, the SNP and the Greens voted down my party’s reasonable attempts to introduce such measures. They should have taken the opportunity today to deliver those much-needed amendments and to back Scottish Labour’s proposals. Their doing so would have given the bill a long-term legacy that could have been a touchstone for serious reform across our health service in respect of how patients interact with powers in the NHS, as a public body.

We must also reflect on the overwhelming pressure that is being placed on staff, which, in turn, hinders patient safety. The two things are entirely linked, so there has to be much greater openness to allow staff to raise serious patient safety issues, including their views when wards are seriously understaffed.

At this juncture, I thank the minister for accepting my stage 2 amendment, which improved co-ordination between safe staffing legislation and patient safety legislation. I thank the minister for acknowledging that in today’s debate. Patient safety and staff safety go hand in hand; we cannot have one without the other, so as we debate the bill this evening, I urge members to be aware that we still await the implementation of safe staffing legislation. Patient safety cannot be fully secured until such issues in our healthcare settings are recognised and addressed.

We cannot suggest for a moment that a patient safety commissioner alone will produce significant improvements to patient safety. As we have seen in recent times, confidence has been eroded due to scandals, and our NHS continues to be seriously underfunded. As we have noted, those scandals are often linked to women’s health—including use of mesh, and more recently, provision of endometriosis care. Although I will not focus over much on that point, it must be made and we must continue to address the issue.

We need to redress the balance of power. Some of my amendments sought to do that, so it is disappointing that the Government seemed to be scared to accept them.

The bill is welcome, but it is a stepping stone. We must never forget that this is the beginning, and we must always strive to do more.

It is disappointing that the minister will not accept amendment 16, which was lodged to allay fears about competency. We have been assured that that could be the position, should the minister choose to accept the amendment. With that in mind, I choose to press amendment 7.

I am pleased to speak to amendments 7 and 16, in my name. It is important to note that the amendments are intended to achieve a common goal, which I think the minister and I share, of ensuring that there is strong co-operation between the patient safety commissioner for Scotland and other bodies. I have lodged amendment 7 to express my view, as I did at stage 2, that the extent of that co-operation between the patient safety commissioner for Scotland and other bodies must be far reaching and to ensure that duties exist both ways.

Having said that, I understand that the minister had concerns at stage 2. To allow further protections to be put in place, in the event that those concerns are still held, I have lodged amendment 16 to help to allay any fears about amendment 7. I believe that amendment 16 separates the Scottish bodies from section 15(2)(d) and applies the duty to co-operate only to them. I hope that that may allay any fears surrounding competence.

As I did at stage 2, I refer the minister to the stage 1 report, which highlighted the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman’s comments with regard to the clarity in the bill on the relationship between the patient safety commissioner for Scotland and the broader landscape. I think that the amendments that I have lodged today assist the bill in addressing such concerns. I repeat my point that amendment 16, in particular, has been drafted to overcome the minister’s concerns at stage 2, while maintaining the same spirit of ensuring strong co-operation in the exercise of functions that I know we both hope to achieve.

I move amendment 7.

My comment is very similar. I worked for the NHS for a number of years and paid into the NHS pension scheme.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to recent reports that treatment for ovarian cancer is a postcode lottery and has left some women with no option but to pay for private healthcare. (S6T-01555)

I thank the minister for that answer, but I am dismayed to read the reports in the Sunday Post that clearly detail a two-tiered health system in which the wealthy can afford treatment and even those on average incomes have little choice but to spend most of their savings on surgery to keep them alive. If someone is poor, it seems as though their option is to hope against hope that they get surgery on the NHS before it is too late.

As we know, ovarian cancer is often detected very late and receiving treatment in a timely manner is imperative if patients are to have positive outcomes. Will the minister detail how that situation has come to pass, and what the Government will be doing for women who have had to spend so much money simply to save their own lives?

It has been two years since the women’s health plan was announced in an effort to tackle health inequality, but I put it to the minister that there has rarely been a time since the foundation of the NHS when it has been so dangerous to be a woman who is not well off in Scotland. Depending on where people live, the situation could be even worse. What immediate and urgent action will the Government take to stop the postcode lottery and restore confidence to people who are waiting for life-saving interventions?