Chamber and committees

Thank you, Christiana, and thanks for being so brief.

I hand over to Sharon Dowey to get some more evidence on the record for us in the few minutes that we have left.

Thanks. In the interests of time, I ask Christiana Melam to make a very brief intervention at this point. l will bring you in, Christiana, then I will invite Sharon Dowey to put some final questions to you all.

Pavan Srireddy and Christiana Melam want to come in on that point.

Thanks, Pavan. Christiana Melam, do you want to come in on vacancy and turnover rates?

Dr Srireddy wants to come in on the workforce action plan, then we will turn to the final question.

This will be the final question.

That is very helpful. I now ask Graham Simpson to kick off his areas of questioning.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2023 of the Public Audit Committee.

The first item for consideration is whether to take agenda item 3 in private. Do we agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. Anne Rowan, do you want to add anything to that?

We have tried to tease that out with the Scottish Government when it has sat in front of us.

I was going to bring this up later, but I will bring it up now, because it seems to relate to what you said. We have been struck by exhibit 3 in the report, which is a graph that shows huge variation among health boards in the number of face-to-face appointments versus telephone or video appointments. It is not just about remote communities being more reliant on video and telephone appointments. There are stark contrasts. For example, in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, 86 per cent of psychological therapy appointments are face to face, with just 14 per cent being by telephone or video, whereas in NHS Lanarkshire—which I guess has a similar population demographic—just 32 per cent are face to face and more than two thirds are by video or telephone. Can you explain that variation?