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You mentioned that we must change the way that we deliver our health and social care while maintaining access to services. You have also said that you and John Burns are still discussing how the recovery plans will demonstrate ambition for reform, but that there is still a lot to do on cementing milestones for that delivery plan. As you said, it has been 8 months since the Scottish Government published the recovery plan. What is your assessment of progress, if any has been made, since its publication?

We all understand that there is no quick fix, but the daily statistics on accident and emergency, cancer, delayed discharges and diagnosis are bleak. Is the plan working? What confidence can we have in it?

I thought that one of the intentions was to reduce the amount of alcohol that people are drinking. What I am suggesting is that that has not happened; they are still drinking the same, if not more, alcohol, but they are buying it in a higher-value category.

Thank you for drawing attention to the inequality that women face in accessing services. If 51 per cent of the population are struggling to access services that are being developed, that should probably be the number 1 priority, given the make-up of this committee.

The number of alcohol-related hospitalisations and deaths is eight times higher in the most deprived areas of Scotland. We should all be ashamed about that. We really need to figure out how to target and support those communities. Support mechanisms for alcohol misuse are often far more sparse in deprived areas than they are in the most affluent areas. What can we do to narrow the gap and target deprived communities?

My question follows on from Gillian Mackay’s point. It has been revealed that one of the impacts of minimum unit pricing is that Scottish consumers have contributed £270 million more than was projected, in terms of their spending on alcohol. What consideration has the Scottish Government given to the possibility of ring-fencing proceeds from alcohol to be spent on rehabilitation and treatment? The current model feeds the revenue straight back into the supply chain.

To follow that up, we have heard that alcohol-related deaths have increased by 10 per cent since 2020. The minister said that the most recent year with data on ABIs is 2019-20, when the level was 23 per cent higher than the expected standard. However, between 2013 and 2020, the number of ABIs declined by 28 per cent. We heard that you are reviewing evidence, but what can we do immediately and in the short term to really produce an uptick in ABIs, which are critical—particularly in deprived areas?

You spoke about displacement. A report from the Institute of Economic Affairs has suggested that minimum unit pricing is responsible for a certain amount of displacement to higher-value categories. It says that the policy has resulted in an extra 8.2 million litres of pure alcohol being sold in the 50p to 64p per unit category and a further 0.4 million litres being sold above 70p per unit. What investigatory work has the Scottish Government commissioned into that level of displacement, and do you recognise the argument that the policy has pushed consumers towards the mid-range rather than away from alcohol in its entirety?

In Scotland, we now have, for want of a better phrase, an opt-out approach to organ donation, but what else is the Scottish Government doing to increase the number of organ donors in Scotland? Would that not help to limit the risk of commercial dealings around organ transplants?

Thank you for those responses.

Mr Boyle, you mentioned earlier that the NHS has consistently failed to deliver on all of its historic staffing ambitions, and you stated that the new recovery plan is predicated on recruitment and retention of staff, so staffing is obviously key. I might not have got the wording exactly right, but I hope that that gives the gist of it. Do you get the sense that what the recovery plan sets out is the reform that is required and is not just tackling the long-standing staff issues that we have? Bringing about the reform that is needed is different to tackling our recruitment challenges.

We have spoken about how the shift to the preventative agenda can be made. How can we monitor progress in putting the preventative agenda for healthcare into place, rolling it out and delivering it? Is there data to support the monitoring of progress when it comes down to the outcomes? It is a challenge that we hear a lot about, but how do we actually monitor progress?

My second question goes back to drawing parallels with the clinical prioritisation framework, which I am certainly aware of. The Scottish Government is piloting prehabilitation for cancer patients, but what value do you attach to rolling out the scheme more broadly across the NHS, particularly for those who are in the various categories in the prioritisation framework, to make sure that people are in good shape, rather than in worse shape, when they eventually reach the point at which they will have treatment?