Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay. So the petitioner has options.

I have no interests to declare, but I refer members to my entry in the register of interests.

I will tell the member how that can be mitigated: it can be done by voting Labour at the next general election.

When visiting hospitals in my region, I have seen hard-working people struggling to do an impossible task with too few staff, fewer resources and constant pressure. With that, and the worst cancer waiting times on record, how can we in this Parliament, and as a people, say that what we are achieving is good enough? It is time to take responsibility. I ask the Government, please, to take responsibility, and I ask the Government back benchers to put some pressure on the front bench to take responsibility. When we take responsibility, we can have a serious discussion about how we help to take away the pressures on the NHS. I am one of the first in this chamber to take on the Tories and debate what we need to do about the Tory Government.

In the short time that I have, I would like to highlight the unacceptable length of waiting times in women’s health services. Women are being forced to wait for dangerously long periods for gynaecological treatment. The data for April to June this year, which was published yesterday, highlights that only just over half of eligible referrals for cervical cancer started treatment within 62 days. That means that nearly half of those who were eligible did not start cancer treatment within two months. That is a shocking statistic and is a key breach of the Government’s pledges.

Those are serious issues that cannot be left for so long without serious risk to life and long-term health, yet it sometimes seems that, because the issues relate to women’s health, they are more likely to take a back seat. What makes me say that? After repeated promises in the chamber to have a women’s health champion, and despite being told more than once in the chamber that an appointment would be made in the summer, we are now approaching October and we still have no women’s health champion.

I say to the Government, to the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport, and to the First Minister that they must meet their commitment to Scotland’s women and get this done.

Will the member take an intervention?

As we can see from the contributions so far, the topic of the debate is very important to the public. It is at the forefront of the public’s concerns month after month, year after year. There is a reason for that, which is that people truly value our NHS and want it to succeed. They understand that it is our most valuable asset, as a country, and that if the NHS is running well, the country is on the right track.

That is why my party, and I am sure many members in the chamber and people in our communities, cannot understand why, when we are going into a winter that will undoubtedly see a significant increase in fuel poverty and malnutrition, as well as increased concerns about spiralling mental health due to the state of the economy, we are not having a serious rethink of the NHS recovery plan here in Scotland.

The fact is, that the SNP-Green Government has shown itself to be wholly incapable of taking responsibility for the scale of the crisis that is engulfing our health and social care service. I want to speak to SNP back benchers as well. It is our responsibility to scrutinise what is being done here in Scotland by the Scottish Government. We are discussing a serious point that has to be taken on board. No matter what the problem is, there is always an excuse from the Government. All the while, patients and staff want solutions and a sense of on-going progress.

To conclude, I say that we need solutions, and we need them now. Only if we are serious will we get the necessary things done to make sure that staff and patients have a better-performing NHS in Scotland.

I want to be clear that I accept that the panel members want things to work and that they are working hard to get this in. However, I want to talk a wee bit about the reality that we observe and what we see in our in-boxes from patients who have waited on trolleys and have found that the staff work 100 per cent and above and beyond, but are still finding it difficult. Staff trade unions also tell us how much stress staff are under in relation to beds. The professional organisations tell us that, too.

I visited a local hospital at 9 o’clock on a Friday morning. There were three ambulances waiting to unload, every accident and emergency bay had had a patient in it for more than 24 hours, and the bed capacity was basically non-existent. I was told by staff and managers—everybody—that that situation was not unusual.

We need to be realistic about where we are, and we need to talk about whether there is enough support from the Government to help health boards. Will we have enough bed space this winter? The issue is not just bed space: I have been advised that the ratio of bed space to staffing is not at the level that we need even before we fill the beds—they are constantly getting staff in again and again.

I appreciate that you want things to work, but how realistic is it that things will be in a good space this winter?

It is fair to say that we have discussed delayed discharges over many years, and we acknowledge that things continue to be bad and are possibly worse than they were before. The witnesses on the previous panel and the current one have mentioned how important delayed discharge is in resolving some of the issues.

You have talked about recruitment of staff, staff pay, intermediate beds, the role that AHPs can have and, of course, the pay, terms and conditions and recruitment of social care staff. What support do you need from the Scottish Government to move forward? There is a lot of urgency, but it does not always feel as though we are moving forward at pace with any of the ideas from you and the staff about Government support.

That is very helpful. Is enough urgency being placed on that to get it through quickly enough? That is the key.

Recent shocking figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service highlight a shortfall of almost 1,000 in the number of students who are currently accepted in nursing and midwifery courses in Scotland, compared with the Government’s own recommended intake for 2022-23.

In my South Scotland region last week, I saw at first hand the impact that shortages are having on Ayrshire’s hospitals and the wellbeing of their staff. We need a clear plan for making nursing and midwifery an appealing career for young people to address those figures, which are being described as “extremely worrying” for nursing.

I ask the First Minister: when will her Government stop patting itself on the back, realise the scale of this recruitment problem and outline in detail the actions that it will take to address it?