Chamber and committees

Yes—without family networks to support them.

The Mental Health Foundation recommends in its submission that

“the development of perinatal mental health services be equality-proofed”

to reduce the social inequalities that may prevent pregnant and postnatal women from experiencing good mental health. Where do you think the gaps are in the delivery of perinatal mental health, especially in relation to at-risk or vulnerable women.

Good morning, everybody.

We have heard some really interesting responses so far. Dr Chopra touched a wee bit on training. I am interested in what training is available, what training is being delivered, and what barriers, if any, there are to training. My understanding is that there is a Royal College of General Practitioners perinatal mental health toolkit. Information has also been produced by NES, and there are re-learning modules. I know that the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale is used to assess women once they have delivered a baby. There seems to be so much information out there, so how is it being delivered to health professionals—midwives, GPs and other practitioners?

What you have said about education in work time is really important. I probably need to remind everybody that I was a clinical educator before I was an MSP, and provided education to midwives.

It is important that we offer education in work time. Would providing education directly in the workplace, and not expecting people to do continuing professional development away from their workplace, also support retention of the workforce, which you previously mentioned?

Thank you, convener. I will be as quick as possible.

This is a question for David Ferguson. It is about how we can use our infrastructure to meet our climate change, net zero and biodiversity targets. I am talking about issues such as having access to green space, 20-minute neighbourhoods and so on. When I lived in California, we got points for car pooling and walking or cycling. There was a scheme whereby those points could be exchanged for movie tickets, which was great in Los Angeles. That was a good way of getting outside and getting active. However, I do not know whether we have car pooling or car sharing or walking or cycling incentive schemes in Scotland. Do we need to provide such schemes?

I am also thinking about the e-bike revolution. How do we make e-bikes less expensive? Do we need to do more to encourage uptake of e-bikes? I know that the Scottish Government has an e-bike grant fund. In 2019-20, £273,000 was given out and more than 100 e-bikes were provided. So far, more than 600 e-bikes have been provided through that scheme. How do we use our infrastructure to support our net zero targets?

Sure. In the previous session of Parliament, the Health and Sport Committee, of which I was a member, held an inquiry into the subject, and its report was called “Social prescribing: physical activity is an investment, not a cost”. We gathered evidence and held sessions around that.

My question is for David Ferguson, who asked what further evidence we need in order to do more to support social prescribing programmes. I know that there are general practices that do a fantastic job in signposting people, but community link workers would help to play a part in that. Do you have any reflections on the Health and Sport Committee’s report and how it can feed in to develop further evidence about the benefits of social prescribing of physical activity?

We have seen a massive uptake of e-bikes and cargo bikes. Even Michael Matheson, who is the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, has an e-bike. What more should be done to encourage folk to get out and use their e-bikes?

Good morning. I am interested in the issue of duplication of effort and the capacity to obtain certain data that Sue Webber talked about. Obviously more data have been gathered during the pandemic, but have you had to pause any data collection? In some of the work that I have been doing, I have found people to be a bit fed up of feeling like hamsters on a wheel in having to collect data, data and more data without actually knowing what the data are being used for. Has there been a pause in collecting some data, and does more work need to be done to ensure that people on the ground know why the data are being gathered and what they are being used for?

Perhaps Chris Mackie could start.

There is sometimes a disconnect between what the Scottish Government wants to implement and local delivery. I am interested to know whether there are barriers in local authorities, health boards, third sector organisations or IJBs. We know that there are early adopters and that there are folk who arenae. Are there any disconnects that hinder successful implementation of what the Scottish Government wants to take forward?