Chamber and committees

In the evidence to the committee, I was struck by the suggestion that patients are now presenting with more acute conditions than they were pre-pandemic. I suppose that I could ask any of the witnesses about that, but I will start with Dr Miles.

I do not know whether any of the other witnesses wish to contribute. Professor Elder? It seems that everybody wants in. Professor Elder can go first.

Healthcare professionals definitely vented some frustration this morning at the interface between primary and secondary care and the inability of secondary care to access primary care data when a patient re-presents. I worked in this area before my time in Parliament, and what interests me is how we get the ability to port that information and data. Covid has highlighted and exacerbated the issue and, looking ahead and thinking about the lessons learned that you referred to, Deputy First Minister, I think that we have a very good opportunity to look at how and what data is collected and how it is accessed. That will require an IT system that is universally applicable to the whole of the country, which is not the case at the moment. Where are we with the development of that kind of structure?

I will finish here, convener, but I would encourage the Deputy First Minister and the health secretary to look back at the Health and Sport Committee’s work in the previous parliamentary session. Listening to this morning’s evidence, I have to say that the sort of universality of access that you have described is not the case in Scotland. If you input data in Glasgow, it cannot be accessed in Edinburgh and has to be reinput over here.

We are getting into an area here, but I think—it is not a criticism—that there is an opportunity to consider a system-wide change that would be to the huge benefit of our population and our NHS workers.

That is very helpful, as it sets up the direction of travel in which we were wanting to go. That concerns the collection and analysis of data. We did a lot of work on the Health and Sport Committee in the previous session, before Covid, on Scotland possibly behind the curve in our ability to collect data. When approaching a challenge, we must be able to quantify what the challenge is in the first place.

Is the Scottish Government collecting data or setting up indicators that are adequate to establish the extent of the health impacts that are not directly related to Covid-19? Is one of the points of learning that we need to take from Covid that we need to be better at gathering and quantifying data?

Good morning, Deputy First Minister and colleagues. I will take this opportunity to extend the conversation that we had with our previous panel about lessons learned and what we can do in the future. In most of the submissions that we had from experts, the word “anecdotal” appears a lot regarding the collection of data and what is happening, especially on what is happening with non-Covid-related conditions, and I note from the written evidence that

“deaths from other conditions may have increased”,

although the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh is

“not aware of any published data to support this.”

This is an extension of work that was done by the Health and Sport Committee in the previous session of the Parliament on collection of data. Fortunately, one of the experts speaking to us this morning raised the issue of the IT system that is currently available in the NHS, and words such as “clunky” came out. There are three different systems that the NHS works with just now. Looking ahead, I think that it would be beneficial if one of the investments that are made is to deliver an IT system that allows the proper collection and deployment of appropriate data. Covid has taught us that data is incredibly important.

I know that the Government was considering this in the previous session; I wonder where we are with the potential development of a new IT system for the NHS.

As I said, I do not want to labour the point but, when a business is under that kind of financial pressure, those decisions have to be made. I am just putting that out there.

I will go on to where my real interest lies. My question follows on from the questions that my colleague Jim Fairlie asked. One thing that Covid has shown us is how much we can change societal behaviour in a short space of time. On Mr Fairlie’s point, many conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and mental health problems can be positively impacted by behaviour. More people in our population die from those conditions than from Covid, although I know that we have been in an emergency situation. In my book, as we come out of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to change the fact that we live in an unhealthy part of Europe. How do we use what we have learned from Covid to change societal behaviour for the betterment of health in Scotland?

I have to thank you for calling me a professional athlete. I think that that finished a good 2 stone ago.

Good morning. I have a quick question about the earlier discussion on hybrid working. A number of companies have made the point to me that, if we end up with a hybrid working system, a lot of companies will still have a 10 or 15-year lease on office space, which they have to take into account. There is a cost in delivering a hybrid working model, but the costs that those businesses had pre pandemic remain. I do not know whether the Government has considered that or taken it into account.

Muscle is so much heavier than fat. [Laughter.]

The fact that we have a huge opportunity to reset is a massively important point. That might be contrary to the approach of publishing the sort of data that Mr Fairlie talked about. I would like to think that we could do it from a positive perspective, which means opening up opportunity that has been significantly curtailed during the pandemic. To have that sort of impact, we will need to not just go back to the level of opportunity that we had before but go much further. I want to understand the Government’s thinking on that.

Speaking anecdotally, I am still doing athletics coaching, so I know that we have limited access to the track—it is open only at certain times, which I do not understand. My mother cannot go to her exercise classes at the moment. It is not just about getting back to where we were. It is about how we take this opportunity and go much further.