Chamber and committees

Just to go back a bit, I recommend that people look at the Government’s website. There is comprehensive information on the national care service, with all the reports and information on the engagements over the summer and the work that has been done to connect locally. It is great that Stranraer was one of the places involved, because folk fae Stranraer always feel forgotten.

How does the Government get the message out that people should look at what is on the Government’s website to find out about the power of work that has been done over the summer? What is the best way to share that information?

I draw members’ attention to the fact that, while I was an NHS Scotland employee, I paid into an NHS Scotland pension.

Thank you.

I want to come in on the back of other questions that have been asked. In chapter 2 of its “Tipping the Scales” report, IPPR Scotland says:

“Important action has been taken within devolved powers ... demonstrating what can be achieved with political will and investment.”

The report talks about the devolution of new welfare powers and the establishment of Social Security Scotland. More than £1 billion has been spent on 12 new benefits, which include council tax reduction, the Scottish child payment and the best start grant.

A lot of those benefits are outside the health portfolio. Ministers in the Scottish Government such as the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport have their own portfolios, but everything crosses over in relation to health improvement, so I am interested in how we consider the budget.

We should value what has been set up by Social Security Scotland—it focuses on fairness, dignity and respect rather than taking the punitive approach that the Department for Work and Pensions takes. Should anything else be picked up in relation to which form of welfare support would help to improve Scotland’s safety net?

Okay, thank you.

I suppose that it is an NHS board’s responsibility to deliver. The Government has a plan but the NHS board would be the one to deliver the women’s health plan in NHS Lothian, for instance. NHS Lothian would propose how it would monitor the delivery of its plans and the outcomes that it has achieved.

I am asking because I am the co-convener of the wellbeing economy cross-party group and we have had lots of interesting discussion about how it is good to support wellbeing as a nation and not just to measure productivity on GDP.

We will probably come back to tackling poverty, but I have a question on that issue. Certain things are reserved to the UK Government and some items, such as health, are devolved, but the money is not. What role do food producers and retailers have in engaging with Government to look at how we support diets that are healthier and ensure that people can afford healthier food? Some of the food that is marketed right now, such as processed food, is jam-packed full of calories and does not tell your brain that you are satiated, so you keep eating. There is emerging research on that, which I find pretty fascinating. Is there a role for supermarkets, restaurants and cafes to work with Government to help to deliver a less obesogenic environment?

I recently read that the Scottish Government is providing £700 million of support to mitigate things such as the bedroom tax. I know that this is straying into politics. The Barnett formula makes adjustments for Scotland, but we are constrained by the way that the budget is delivered in Scotland by another Government. Do we need to be looking at alternatives to how the Scottish Government’s block grant is delivered?

I am thinking about community pharmacy as another way to direct people—pharmacy first, for instance—and our national treatment centres, which have been established so that elective surgery can be done and emergency beds are not taking up the space for elective patients. That work has been done, but I feel like we are spinning plates sometimes because none of it is an overnight fix. I used the example of Professor Pekka Puska in Finland: it took three decades but, with that approach, he reduced the mortality of men from cardiovascular disease by 80 per cent.

Is the Scottish Government going in the right direction when it comes to budget choices around health and—on the back of Evelyn’s question—when it comes to helping people manage expectations as well?