Chamber and committees

Somebody in that circumstance would be in phase 1, which would last as long as the compulsory treatment, but somebody who has not had a compulsory treatment order would have only the six-month period. Is your concern that that six-month period may not be long enough for somebody with a mental health problem to deal with their debt?

Good morning to the panel. Can I raise a number of questions about the mental health moratorium working group? The working group has recommended that only those in compulsory treatment should be able to access a mental health moratorium, which is quite a narrow criterion. It is narrower than the definition in England and Wales. Does any of the panel have a view on that approach that they would like to share with the committee?

Good morning, James. I am interested in the boundaries of city region deals, given that my area, the Borders, is in two, including in one in the north of England, but I will not go there at the moment.

I want to highlight the issue that you raise about the cluttered landscape where several organisations often have overlapping responsibilities and there is no one-stop shop for the customer base. You do not suggest decluttering the number of players in the landscape. Instead, you recommend building collaboration into the design of the bodies. How do we do that, given the fact that we have been here before with the enterprise and skills review in 2016 and interagency competition is probably worse now than it was before that review?

Following up on that point, you talk about the standard moratorium that is in place at the moment. That provides a six-month window, which has increased from the six weeks that it was previously. There is a big debate as to what that timeline should be now. Is six months an appropriate period for the second phase of the mental health moratorium, which our witnesses last week said should be the case? In the work that you do, do you detect that that period of time is sufficient?

You mentioned that the timescale for the wider moratorium was extended to six months. I think that my colleagues will have some specific questions on that. However, there is a fear that, if that is reduced and we go back to the previous timescale, a lot of people who have mental health problems will struggle, if they are not covered by those criteria. How many people will be covered by compulsory mental health treatment, and therefore by the moratorium, if they have debt issues? Have you done any modelling? When you discussed the criteria, what sort of numbers were you talking about?

That is very helpful. You mentioned that you would support a slightly wider definition of the eligibility criteria. What would that definition entail? Would it be the same definition that is used in England and Wales? Are there particular challenges in how we define things? It is quite easy to define compulsory treatment, but widening the definition would make things more challenging.

Does that initiative appear to be coming from the Government? It does not sound as though it is coming from the industry.

Therefore, is it something that appears to be coming from the Government rather than the industry?

The Government describes the initiative as being in an “early scoping stage”, so you have confirmed that for us.

The Scottish Government is considering the creation of a national pharmaceutical agency to improve links between life sciences and the NHS. It has described it as a possible “front door” to health from the life sciences community. Is that agency necessary and, if so, what should it do?