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People truly value our NHS, but what is going on is just not good enough. One in seven Scots are now stuck on NHS waiting lists. The cabinet secretary should sort it out or pass the responsibility to someone who can.

In my area of East Ayrshire, which has been highlighted as one of the places most affected by the issue, the key to successful intervention is to work with people early and have properly funded training, so that we can embed the concept of suicide prevention throughout every stage of care and treatment. Many professionals in primary care require further training to recognise those signs, and in doing so, they would bring down the backlog of people who are waiting for treatment, which is, of course, concerningly high. Given that it does not match previous investment in suicide strategies, I will ask the minister directly whether he really thinks that the annual funding of £2.8 million and a rebranding exercise will cover the training requirements and the work that we need to put in to make the strategy successful.

It has been a busy week for bad news across the UK, so, understandably, the Scottish Government was hoping that its own failings would drift under the radar. However, with winter approaching, we need to get serious, and quickly, about the significant problems with the Government’s management of our NHS. It is putting lives at risk. There is a crisis in A and E across Scotland and, quite frankly, the cabinet secretary has been missing in action for a great deal of it. He and a number of his predecessors have overseen years of poor workforce planning, cuts to hospital bed numbers in many areas and a consistent failure to recognise the approaching dangers of the underfunding and underresourcing of social care.

The situation beyond A and E is also desperately concerning. I have been helping one constituent who has been waiting for more than 80 weeks for arthroscopy surgery—80 weeks, cabinet secretary, in serious pain. I am advised that things are deteriorating by the day and that she is dependent on medication to get through the day. I have written to the cabinet secretary about that case, and he is unable to give that woman—and that family—any idea of when it might be possible for that vital operation to take place. I will say it again: that constituent has been waiting for 80 weeks.

It is whole families who suffer. While living with considerable pain, that woman struggles to support her child, often relying on her husband to do things that she would love to be involved with. The situation is worse than just the constant pain. Imagine how that family feels, when, for 80 weeks, they cannot do the things that they would wish to do with their daughter. We should all think about the physical pain and the mental distress. The chances of her situation improving seem to be dwindling with every passing day, as she waits for an appointment that seems as though it will never come. As I have said, the cabinet secretary is unable to offer anything to that woman.

These are the human stories behind the statistics—stories that do not even warrant a headline anymore, as they are so common. If the health secretary thinks that that is acceptable and, on top of that, cannot seem to do anything about A and E waiting times of more than eight hours going into winter—with some as high as 12 hours—it is reasonable to ask why he is still in his job.

This week, we have seen lots of politicians in London miraculously regain the jobs that they had lost, but the bar here seems to be so high that, no matter how often a minister fails, they will be kept in post. I dread to think what would happen to ordinary workers in this country if they made as many mistakes as this Administration has.

Waiting times are a massive concern for many of my constituents. Month after month, year after year, people are living with anxiety and concern about how they will get the treatment that they need. We must remember those personal stories.

We must also remember that hard-working hospital staff are under huge pressure every day, which causes them stress and anxiety as well. However, that seems to be one of those things that people in this Government just appear to accept as a force of nature. Nothing serious is ever done to address the problem; no actions are taken, and it just comes back around the next year. People—

The minister can shout all she likes, but what I am saying is true. These are true stories that members bring to the chamber to enable us to have a serious discussion with the cabinet secretary about how we move things forward.

Thanks so much for your time, Dr Connon. I am interested in two things. They are big things, but perhaps you can comment on them quickly.

The first thing is about reporting on the quality of care that individuals and families get and the second is about the staff who provide that care. Perhaps I can link those two things together by highlighting my interest in local accountability. With healthcare, we often say that the closer the decisions are made to the person, the better the outcomes will be. I wonder whether there is any sense of that in any of the models that you have discussed.

I am interested in the local accountability that exists in the models, given the ways in which the services have been set up and are managed.

I support Gillian Mackay’s position on writing to the health boards. We would then have some information that we could look at, and we could speak to the cabinet secretary.

I tend to feel that we should keep all the petitions open. I do not think that any of us covers the Caithness area, although I am not 100 per cent sure about that. I would like to speak to somebody about that issue, because I do not know a lot about it. That would give me a chance to refer to somebody who covers the area.

Women in Moray are being let down by a lack of services close to home. However, they are also being let down by the Scottish Government’s sheer inability to value our NHS workforce properly and to fill vacancies across the country, particularly in rural communities. It is clear that Scotland needs a women’s health champion to lead and push on such issues. In June, the First Minister told the chamber that the appointment would be made in the summer. In early September, the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport told me that the appointment process was almost complete. Will the cabinet secretary tell us when Scotland will finally have a women’s health champion and show women in Moray and across Scotland through action rather than words that the Government is listening and taking their concerns seriously?

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to support the rural economy in areas impacted by long-term population decline. (S6O-01417)

Can the minister confirm that the £5 million for the now-abandoned islands bond is still ring fenced for tackling depopulation? Can he advise whether plans for utilising that resource will be set out in future financial plans?