Chamber and committees

Our final theme is resourcing. The questions will be led by Sandesh Gulhane, and Paul Sweeney also has some questions.

You are calling for us to do something specifically on women’s health and not just something as part of work on rural healthcare. I am not sure that the committee has the scope or the capacity to do two separate pieces of work on rural healthcare. I think that it will have to be one larger piece of work that encompasses women’s health.

Good morning and welcome to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee.

I have received apologies from Stephanie Callaghan.

Agenda item 1 is for the committee to decide whether to take item 5 and the next meetings of the committee on 28 February and 7 March in private. Do members agree?

Members indicated agreement.

Thanks, Emma. We move on to some questions from Evelyn Tweed.

We will. You are more than welcome to offer those suggestions now, but if you want to wait, that is fine.

To whom do you want to direct that question, Emma?

Agenda item 3 is consideration of three public petitions. The committee took evidence on the petitions from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on 17 January, and I will go through them one by one. Members should let me know whether they wish to comment on any of them.

The first petition is PE1845, which calls for a health agency to advocate for the healthcare needs of rural Scotland. I believe that Emma Harper wants to come in first, after which I will go to other members.

Yes—as part of a wider inquiry.

We take cognisance of and pay respect to the fact that the petition was lodged. As Paul Sweeney says, the petitioners were not really wedded to the idea of an agency but wanted the issues to be looked at, so they might be quite happy with that. That does not preclude them from deciding, “We have not changed our minds and we are going to bring back a new petition, exactly the same, and get this looked at again because, as a result of the work that the committee has done, we feel the same.”

That was a perinatal unit. That came up in the inquiry that we did.

Thank you. We move on to questions on the voices of staff, which will be led by Paul O’Kane.