Chamber and committees

The Northern Ireland protocol interests me because I am interested in the port of Cairnryan and the transport of goods between Cairnryan and Larne and Belfast. How will the food composition standards and labelling framework impact on or affect the operation of the protocol?

Under the UK withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland remains in the UK customs territory while remaining aligned with EU regulations. That means that Northern Ireland has to do what the EU regulations require. Scotland did not vote to exit the European Union. Could Scotland also align with EU regulations and work in the way that is intended by the Northern Ireland protocol? I would be interested in pursuing whether we could basically work as part of a Northern Ireland protocol if we chose to continue to align with EU policy.

I will pick up a point for clarification. If general practitioners and general practices are no longer incentivised to deliver alcohol brief interventions, does that mean that we have to think about alternative ways of delivering them? We often talk about a GP or practice nurse as the first port of call for many people when alcohol might not be their issue but it has led to whatever health issue they now have and whose symptoms need to be addressed. How do we support GP practices to deliver ABIs more widely if they are no longer incentivised to do so?

We have talked about prevention. The Government has provided financial support for deep-end practices—for example, in Govan in Glasgow—to monitor engagement. Part of that financial support was for link workers, anti-poverty work and giving people welfare advice. We have that data now to show engagement work and support by deep-end practices. We can look at that data and see the value of investing in that project. Is that something that we can audit right now?

I am interested in the issues relating to inhalers. It is not just about one measurement of hydrofluorocarbons as the delivery mechanism for salbutamol, for example; it is about the whole measurement of the bunch of plastic in a dry-powder inhaler that cannae be recycled as easily as some of the components can be. We need to be careful about saying that we will not give people certain inhalers and will give them only dry-powder inhalers, because the issue is much wider than just looking at propellants for those inhalers.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Does this legislative consent memorandum on illegal organ donation, procurement and so on mean that our own Scottish legislation—the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006—will need to be amended?

I am sorry for jumping in earlier.

I will not give you a shopping list of things to look at either. However, when we had NHS Highland before the committee, I asked it about the reduction emissions that are due to mileage not being travelled because folk are now holding Teams meetings or using Near Me. Are you planning for remote and rural working? How does that support net zero ambitions?

Yes. I am interested in prevention and early intervention. Public Health Scotland became fully functional in April 2020. What up-front preventative actions need to be taken to support better public health across Scotland?

I have a brief supplementary. Public Health Scotland’s website has loads of virtual learning opportunities for clinicians and for anybody in healthcare and social care. It has modules on health inequalities and human rights, health and wellbeing, tackling poverty, mental health, health at work and the public health workforce. There are loads of learning opportunities that people can log into and look at—they are out there and available now.

Will Audit Scotland look at the uptake of those virtual learning experiences, who is involved in taking them up and whether the Government should be doing more to support Public Health Scotland’s work to ensure that the opportunities in that learning environment are taken up by health boards, local authorities and IJBs?

People are now keener to live in remote or rural areas because they can work from home two or three days a week and travel only one or two days, rather than having to drive every day to the central belt or, in Dumfries and Galloway, from Stranraer to Dumfries. That is what I was thinking about with emissions reductions linked to mileage or unnecessary travel, whether by clinicians or staff who support the work of clinicians.

I have another quick question. If someone whom we thought was on a transplant list for a kidney, for example, showed up looking for anti-rejection medication and seemed to be doing well, we might assume that they had received an organ somewhere else. Does the legislation support better traceability of organ surgery, procurement and so on? Given that anti-rejection medication is part of the treatment following transplant, would that be a trigger for pursuing what might be criminality if someone had received an organ outside Scotland?