Seòmar agus comataidhean

We can write to the minister and ask for clarification of that.

As members have no other comments, I propose that the committee does not make any recommendation in relation to the negative instrument but that we write to the minister on the points that Dr Gulhane raised. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

The increase in utility bills for heating and electricity is affecting people with caring responsibilities disproportionately.

Emma Harper has a short supplementary question and then I must move on to other members.

Colleagues, we will extend the session for another 15 minutes, so we have until 11.30, but there are an awful lot of you wanting to ask questions. Please direct them to individuals so that we can get through everyone.

Thank you for the clarification. I guess that, with the cost of living crisis, we might see more of that as people are plunged deeper into poverty.

Sandesh Gulhane has a final question before we wrap up.

The second instrument is the National Health Service (Optical Charges and Payments and General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022. The purpose of the negative instrument is to increase national health service optical voucher values by 2 per cent, to support more patients with eye problems being safely managed in the community, to enable remote consultations and to deliver other miscellaneous changes.

No motion to annul the regulations has been lodged. As members have no comments on the regulations, I propose that the committee does not make any recommendation in relation to them. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

The third instrument is the National Health Service (Vocational Training for Dentists) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2022. The regulations amend the National Health Service (Vocational Training for General Dental Practice) (Scotland) Regulations 2004, first, to change the employer of dentists undertaking vocational training from training practices to NHS Education for Scotland and, secondly, to continue an exemption from vocational training for dentists who hold certain European diplomas.

No motion to annul the regulations has been lodged.? Do members have any comments on them?

You are talking about people being on a precipice the whole time—thank you for that description. Gillian Mackay is next.

Another thing that was mentioned was the training of prison officers so that they can identify when somebody really needs healthcare. Could you give us a little bit more information and some examples of when the system has fallen down?

Thank you to you all for those comprehensive statements—so comprehensive, in fact, that you have probably answered the question that I was going to lead with, which was about your main asks in different policy areas.

I will quote our predecessor committee from session 4, which undertook an inquiry into health inequalities in 2015. In its report, it said that health inequalities

“would not be reduced without action to reduce inequalities in every other policy area and across every portfolio.”

We have just heard from Dr Wright that not only Scottish Government portfolios but UK Government portfolios have an impact on health inequalities. I was going to start by asking you all for your main asks, but you have given us a suite of asks that touch on a number of portfolio areas.

Therefore, I will dig into some of what Toni Groundwater talked about. I was in a break-out room with some of the people you support, and I have my notes from that session. After listening to those people and to you, I was taken aback by some of the things that those families are being put through. You led by talking about the health inequalities that family members suffer, and you also talked about adverse childhood experiences, but every person in that break-out room concentrated on the health inequalities affecting their loved ones in prison. That was their main focus, not themselves and not the impact that it had on their families, although that was evident from listening to them. Their main complaint was about their worry and anxiety for their partners, siblings, friends and so on who were in prison or custody and who were not getting access to their right to healthcare. You could see that that was having an effect on those people’s mental health.

In your statement, you said that there should be parity between the justice system and the healthcare system. I want to talk about the change that resulted from responsibility for the healthcare of prisoners moving from the SPS to the NHS. We heard families say that, when they had concerns about people getting access to medication for long-term conditions, the SPS said that the NHS was letting them down, and the NHS then said that it could not get access to the person because of the people running the prisons. Nobody knew who was responsible. Can you give us a bit more information? You deal with these things every day.