Chamber and committees

I will be brief, convener. I just want to welcome the minister’s comments about grass-roots organisations in communities, which I think all of us will have experience of. Does the minister feel that there is space to fund some of those organisations at a more localised level and move that sort of thing forward where required?

I declare an interest as a councillor for East Renfrewshire.

I think that this is the first time that the minister has had the opportunity to talk about the national care service with the committee and I am sure that it will not be the last as the proposal progresses in legislation.

We are coming to the end of the consultation phase and I want to start my questions by asking about scope. The scope of the Government’s consultation goes further than Feeley did. There has been a degree of commentary about that. For example, Fiona Duncan, chair of the Promise Scotland, said that she was puzzled as to why children’s services were in the consultation and she expressed some concerns about how we deliver the Promise if it becomes part of the national care service.

I was at the cross-party group on learning disability and lots of folk were concerned about the consultation’s scope and the particular needs of adult social care getting lost in that. What was the rationale for arriving at the scope in the consultation and why does it go beyond Feeley? How do you envisage the bill in comparison to the consultation, once we have processed the responses? I appreciate that there is a lot in those questions.

I thank the minister for that response. I am sure that he will be keen to come to the cross-party group on learning disability as well, so I will book him in for that.

The minister said that people want change. My experience from talking to people is that there is a desire for change but it is perhaps about cultural change rather than being solely focused on structural change.

My next question is—

Yes, thank you for giving us more time, minister. We have had a meaningful discussion about public health and the huge amount that needs to be done. The narrative of a public health Parliament has permeated the discussion.

We are dealing with Covid-19 and its far-reaching impact. In the next part of the meeting, we will hear about the pressures on our NHS as we approach the winter. How can we address the wider public health challenges, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic, while dealing with the huge challenge of remobilisation and getting the delivery of acute services, in particular, back to the right level?

My question is for John Mooney, and Annie Gunner Logan might be able to comment as well. The point that you have made is essentially that we need to deal with pay in the care sector more broadly. John Thomson alluded to the fact that you can work in a supermarket or do bar work and earn more money than you can in social care. What is your view of trade unions, such as the GMB, Unison and others, campaigning for £15 an hour as a standard wage for care work?

We see those pressures every winter, and I take your point about elective surgeries. However, do you feel that the unusual circumstances of the pandemic and the cancellation of more and more elective surgery will create a problem for us at the other end of winter?

It is clear that a range of factors have contributed to the challenges around retention. Brexit is often cited as the key issue.

To pick up on what Annie Gunner Logan said, what mitigation work was done by the Scottish Government for care providers prior to Brexit? Was a detailed piece of work done to tackle what were perceived to be the challenges around staffing as a result of Brexit?

My question is also for Annie Gunner Logan. I have heard a lot about unpaid carers being in crisis because they feel that they cannot access the packages that they need or because they have been told by their local authority that their package will have to be scaled or cut back. In relation to care at home, that is the case not only for older people, but particularly for people who have learning disabilities. From the work that you do with providers and your survey work, do you have the sense that there is something of a crisis for unpaid carers, too?

Thank you, minister. I will follow on from that point. We are meeting during COP26, and the climate change aspect of clean air is linked to the public health duty. The “Clear the air” report from Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation highlighted the specific impact that poor air quality has on low income communities. I am keen to get a sense of what we are doing within the strategy to target those low income communities and areas of multiple deprivation, with regard to issues such as active travel and active transport.

I wonder if I might pivot on to a point that Colin Poolman raised. Everyone has spoken this morning about the challenges in retention. It is evidently a huge challenge to keep people in the system and to support people to remain in it. I am keen to understand from Colin Poolman whether he feels that the Scottish Government’s seasonal planning—the winter plan—has done much to support retention, particularly in nursing.