Chamber and committees

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?

What Audit Scotland needs from the Scottish Government is different types of data. Can you say what data is missing, so that the Government can provide you with data that you can analyse.

I have a quick question about data. We need data to show transparency of information and to make sure that we are following the care pathways and so on. Is that data part of the data supply chain that comes from health boards, integration joint boards and our local authorities? Who procures that data? Does the Government provide it for you?

I get feedback that everybody is so busy churning out data that they cannae get on with their job. The same clinicians and care co-ordinators are being asked to provide data rather than doing what they want to do, which is to get people on to waiting lists, into appointments and moving forward so that they are not just waiting to be told when their hip operation will be. The other part of the data process is about people engaging in a care pathway.

Okay.

I mentioned rural areas earlier, and we are talking about digital inclusion and exclusion. We have found that people in rural areas have used digital access to have telephone or video calls for mental health consultations. Will we continue to measure that to see how digital access benefits people, with those in rural areas being able to see somebody? People should still be able to see someone face to face, because that might be the best way forward for some people, but it could be quite positive for people in our rural areas if they could continue to use NHS Near Me, for example.

That is good to hear.

I was also thinking about how we direct people. For instance, we have had some feedback that people go and see their GP and expect to be given tablets for their type 2 diabetes, for instance, when maybe a social prescribing programme could help reverse that condition. We saw that in the television programme “Fixing Dad”, in which Geoff Whitington, who weighed 20 stones, managed with support from his family to lose a lot of weight. What else can we do to show people that alternative pathways are adjuncts and are not necessarily class B rather than class A things? We have seen, especially during the Covid pandemic, how important it is to support people’s mental health by, say, getting them outside and walking.

The programme has a particular focus on rural general practice.

I am interested in how the regulations will be communicated to the local authorities and health boards. As a nurse, I know about the exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that lead to hospital admissions. A respiratory care action plan is now being developed and will then be delivered. Tomorrow, I am heading to Belfast to talk at a Border and Regions Airways Training Hub—BREATH—project event, which is about COPD causes, prevention and treatment. It is welcome that we have these regulations. How will they be communicated to our local authorities and health boards?

I am also thinking about recruitment of GPs. The Scottish graduate entry medicine programme is unique to Scotland and was created as a collaboration between the universities of St Andrews and Dundee to support training of GPs. I assume that that is going well. This might need a longer answer than we have time for today, but I would like a wee update on how ScotGEM is going.