Chamber and committees

We will move on to talk about continuity of the transition to community health. A number of members want to ask questions. Members, if you have a follow-up question, I ask that you make it brief. We are getting to the point where we will start eating into other business if we take too much more time.

Carol Mochan, did you have a question on this?

Thank you. I want to put something on the record. Paul O’Kane mentioned the letter that we received from the minister yesterday; I just want to let everyone know that it is on our committee’s section of the Scottish Parliament website, for anyone to look at. I know that members have read it. We wrote to the minister about terms and conditions, pensions, the workforce and the inclusion of fair work in the bill, so it is quite a comprehensive letter and it is publicly available now.

We will move on to talk about co-design, timing, implementation and evaluation. Emma Harper has questions.

I know that I said that that was the last question before we give you a break, but I have one more point. In effect, you are saying that, if the bill is too prescriptive, people who are involved in the co-design process possibly will not have the agency that they otherwise would have in relation to what they want the national care service to do.

We are going to give everyone a break for 10 minutes and then come back.

Welcome back. We continue with our questions to the minister on the national care service bill. David Torrance has questions on the charter of rights and responsibilities, complaints and independent advocacy.

Before I move on to Paul O’Kane, I want to raise an issue. Given that the minister has mentioned outcomes, now seems a good time at which to make this point.

We have heard, particularly from people who work in social care, that the time-and-task model does not focus on outcomes. How will we have systems in place that prioritise outcomes for people, rather than systems dictating the amount of time that a home carer comes in and spends with someone, when they might need more than 15 minutes? You know the scenarios—they have been mentioned to us. This is about people’s outcomes, rather than having a system dictating what care people get.

That would be helpful. We understand that you cannot outline the whole list just now, but it would be good for us to have that information.

Sandesh, do you have a follow-up question before we move on to questions from Tess White?

The next item on our agenda is the final oral evidence session in the committee’s stage 1 scrutiny of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. We are taking evidence from the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care and supporting officials. I welcome to the committee the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, Kevin Stewart and, from the Scottish Government, Fiona Bennett, who is the interim deputy director for the national health service, integration and social care finance, and Anna Kynaston, who is deputy director of national care service programme design, engagement and legislation. Good morning to you all. I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you, minister, and thank you for referencing the amount of outreach work that we have done. That gives me the opportunity to thank everyone whom we have met across Scotland in our outreach work and public engagement.

There are two common queries that people have put to us, which I will now put to you. They have come up quite a lot in the informal and formal sessions that we have had.

Over our weeks of evidence gathering, many people whom we have spoken to have said that there is already a lot of excellent legislation relating to care; that there are already excellent policies that they were very excited about when the policies were announced; and that there are lots of frameworks and strategies. However, there is a big implementation gap. How would the national care service close that implementation gap? Do we need a national care service to close that implementation gap, and why can that not be done now? That is the first query.

The second query is more of a comment. People have said that there is not enough detail in the bill for them to be able to ascertain what the national care service will be.

I put those to you in a oner. They are big questions, but they come up a lot.