Chamber and committees

Our next item is two evidence sessions on winter planning. In the first session, we will focus on the national health service and social care in Scotland. I welcome Caroline Lamb, chief executive of NHS Scotland and director general for health and social care; Donna Bell, director for social care and national care service development; Alex McMahon, the Scottish Government’s chief nursing officer; and John Burns, chief operating officer at NHS Scotland. Good morning, all, and thank you for coming in person—what a treat it is to have a whole panel in person.

Winter planning will be a big focus. I ask Caroline Lamb to give an overview of the challenges this winter and how you are preparing for them.

We move on to waiting times and cancelled operations, which Caroline Lamb has already referred to.

I will bring in James Dornan.

Welcome back to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee meeting. Our second evidence-taking session focuses on winter planning in the NHS. We have some representatives from Scottish NHS boards with us: Jeff Ace, the chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway; Dr Jennifer Armstrong, the medical director of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde; and Dr Adam Coldwells, the deputy chief executive and director of strategy for NHS Grampian. We are covering a few different geographical areas to give us a flavour of their approaches to winter planning.

I will go around all three of the witnesses in turn. I ask them to give us an overview of their winter planning strategies and some of the challenges that they foresee this winter. I do not necessarily want them to compare the period with last winter, because last year was particularly challenging, but to tell us what their focuses will be.

We come to Jeff Ace first.

Thank you. As an overview, that is great. My colleagues will dig into some of the detail.

I come to Adam Coldwells.

Thank you. Let us move on to the effect of the cost of living crisis and fuel poverty on people’s health, which is something else that will need to be factored in.

If anyone would like to highlight any additional work that they are doing in their health board, please let me know.

We must move on. Tess White has a question about A and E, and then we will move on to talk about waiting times and cancelled operations.

Gillian Mackay has some questions on waiting times and cancelled operations.

Thank you. I do not know whether anyone has any points to add to what Jeff Ace has said. As with many other things, the issues are probably similar across all health boards.