Chamber and committees

That is helpful. Thank you very much.

I am interested in that cross-departmental Government working, and I would be interested to know whether you have any examples of having done that well. You mentioned transport as being particularly important in rural areas.

I am also interested to know whether you can commit to asking the Deputy First Minister to give us some kind of plan, because it is key that the ministerial departments work closely together. Perhaps some kind of plan about how he sees the next year would be helpful, particularly in the remit of health inequalities.

I absolutely condemn the policies of the current Conservative UK Government. It was interesting that Dr Walsh said at a previous meeting that if we had a change in Government at UK level, that would make an enormous difference to what we could do, including as a devolved nation. However, it is important that we in this committee talk about what we can do in Scotland. I absolutely welcome your commitment to do everything that we can, and I assure you that I will do my very best to hold you to that.

I will talk a little bit about the evidence that Claire Sweeney, from Public Health Scotland, gave to the committee. If you do not mind, I will read out a few points that she made. She said:

“although we have talked about a lot of the challenges that we are facing in Scotland, the big message that I want to emphasise and get across is that we can do a lot about inequality. There are lots of levers and opportunities in Scotland to address it. It is by no means something that is intractable that we cannot address; we can address it.”

She went on to say:

“Given the millions of pounds that the public sector spends in Scotland every year, there is a huge opportunity to use that money to good effect, and we see many ... things”

that we could do in Scotland. She said:

“For example, we hold public bodies to account for financial and access targets, but we do not hold public leaders to account as strongly ... That is something really clear and tangible that could be done.”

She also said that she

“would like budgets and spend across Scotland to be more closely aligned to impact”,

on things such as

“reducing inequality and child poverty”.

and stated:

“It is about the early years, access to education and training, having good and fair work, having a good and affordable standard of living and having healthy communities in place so that people have access to green space, good transport”.

Finally, she noted that

“There is a lot of agreement on what can be done”,

and that we in Scotland need to

“mobilise the rest of the system”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 31 May 2022; c 13-14.]

to do that.

It is. That work is very exciting and there is plenty to work towards. However, I think that Claire Sweeney was saying that, to get the full power behind it, the Government needs to be stronger in pushing public leaders. It would be good to have some kind of commitment from the minister on that. I think that we all agree that we need to push the people at the top to really see this as a priority so that all those things are brought to the fore.

Do the witnesses have any thoughts on how we can ensure that the system understands that people are entitled to that healthcare?

That is lovely. Thank you.

Many points have been well made today, and a lot of my questions have been answered. I take the points about lobbying and ensuring that we get the system change across the UK that is desperately needed. In the meantime, what can we in the Scottish Parliament do in terms of our responsibilities? It has been suggested that we can maximise the benefits that are available to us here, and that we can look at making system change in Scotland. I am interested to hear from witnesses about carers in particular. We want people to know that they are entitled to benefits, healthcare and access the systems that are in place. How can we best do that with the powers that we have?

I am interested in 20-minute neighbourhoods and, in particular, how we ensure that, if we build them, they are affordable wellbeing neighbourhoods for people. How affordable are the green spaces and the leisure activities, for example? Do they have co-operatives that provide affordable food? To ensure that that happens, we need to work more across departments. Does Emma Fyvie feel that that is developing in Clackmannanshire?

Also, does Dr Purdon feel that there is enough cross-departmental working in relation to food and whether it is affordable and in the right place? Do the planning departments make sure that they take those things on board?

I absolutely believe that tackling poverty and putting money into the pockets of communities that need it is really important, so I agree with a lot of what has been said so far. I am interested to know about services and service provision. I have heard anecdotally that it has taken a bit longer for services to open up in some of our more deprived communities. We know that there are staffing problems and that it is perhaps more difficult to attract health staff and support workers into those communities. Is there any evidence of that, and has that been looked into?

Claire Sweeney could perhaps respond to my second question. We know that, if we tackle health inequalities, that helps everybody in our society. Do we look to ensure that the money that we are spending is being directed to those groups of individuals who need it most? I would be interested to know how we measure that.

Either—I am interested in how they feel that the approach is working at a local level and at a national level.