Chamber and committees

What are the potential benefits and risks associated with the proposal to remove the requirement for a nominee as a named person to have their signature witnessed by a prescribed person?

Thank you for that helpful historical insight. Perhaps I can bring in Dr Chopra.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your valuable input. We will probably wait to see the data from this year a bit further down the track.

Finally, we have Dr Francisco Perez-Reche. I hope that I pronounced that correctly.

What are some of the issues that are encountered when organising the witnessing of a named person nomination? Does any of them predate the pandemic?

Thank you. We turn to questions, and I will begin. Some of the previous witnesses in our inquiry have said that, at this stage, it is still very difficult to draw any conclusions on excess deaths and that we might have to wait a considerable time to do that. However, the consultation response from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland says that, in the past year, there have been

“1,389 more ... deaths at home from heart disease and stroke and 679 fewer in hospital”.

That could be due to people’s reluctance to visit a general practitioner. The response states:

“Latest data shows 25% of people saying they would avoid contacting their GP at the moment.”

Those statistics are very worrying. Lawrence, would you like to comment further?

Thank you. I agree with you. It is extremely important that people get back the confidence to visit their GP and do not ignore warning signs.

My next question is for Dr Fenton of Public Health Scotland and Dr Perez-Reche. What is your interpretation of the excess deaths data?

That concludes our evidence session. I thank Dr Chopra and Dr Smyth for their evidence and time. If witnesses would like to provide any further evidence to the committee, they can do so in writing. The clerks are happy to liaise with them on how to do that.

The committee’s next meeting will be 17 March, when we will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on the inquiry into excess deaths in Scotland since the start of the pandemic. We will also take evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery on the latest ministerial statement on Covid-19 and subordinate legislation.

We have a couple of minutes left, so I will bring in Murdo Fraser.