Chamber and committees

We will move on to financial sustainability. The questions will be led by Paul O’Kane.

We will now look at Covid-19 recovery.

Yes.

Emma, I will let you continue, because you had specific questions about mental health spend.

I will ask a question about alcohol and drug services. The budget shows a £13.6 million increase, which is equivalent to a 12.3 per cent real-terms increase, for tackling alcohol and drug problem use and its effects. It can be quite difficult for the Government to ascertain the effect of funding because much is delivered by alcohol and drug partnerships. Could those services be brought under the national care service? Might that be a vehicle to know how that money is spent and where it can be spent better to get the health results that we need?

Good morning and welcome to the first meeting in 2023 of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. I have not received any apologies for today’s meeting—we are all here.

The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take item 3 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

We will bring the discussion back to preventative spend. I have questions from Stephanie Callaghan and Emma Harper.

The Welsh Government has said that it wants to match what the Scottish Government has done but cannot do so.

You have had to make difficult decisions. You have had to reprofile money in the health budget and deal with inflationary pressures on the health budget. Has any additional funding been given to the Scottish Government by the UK Government to deal with any of that?

Thank you. We have a final question from Sandesh Gulhane.

I would like to ask a follow-up question about Covid testing. Free tests are no longer being funded by the UK Government. I believe that, at the moment, we have 1,200 patients in hospital with Covid. Is the fact that our population is not able to test for Covid for free having an impact on the number of people in hospital with Covid just now?