Chamber and committees

—and that is where I am going with that point, Mr Swinney. The Government’s responsibility is to make that opportunity available, and the messaging comes after that.

I do not want to labour this point, but the worry is that, in those particular circumstances, there might be thought of leaning on employees to get them back into the office.

But the opportunity has to exist—

A report that I was looking at on the incidence of lung cancer over the piece says that half of lung cancer diagnoses are being made at stage 4 and that, during Covid, there has been a 25 per cent reduction in diagnosis and a 25 per cent reduction in treatment. The report also says that a lung cancer screening programme should be required, specifically for over-50s and smokers. I understand that you and the Government have to balance the decisions that you have to make, but where are we with gathering those statistics, considering them and making decisions on that basis?

I understand that the Government has to balance a lot of different factors. However, we know from the numbers that people who are in hospital with Covid or who tragically lose their lives to Covid predominantly have other issues as well as Covid, which Covid exacerbates. Because this is the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, I am trying to look ahead. It is really important that we do not lose sight of the fact that those who are in hospital with Covid usually also have some other issue.

It might seem a moot point, but health boards have, for example, and understandably, missed their smoking cessation targets because of Covid. How do we balance that and pull that back together? It is almost a chicken-and-egg situation. If we could reduce—[Inaudible.]—causing significant health impacts by treating other issues, perhaps we could reduce the impact of Covid. How does the Government balance those issues when it makes decisions?

Good morning. I have a couple of questions about data, the first of which is about the collection of data on non-Covid-related issues.

A constituent—a friend of mine, in fact—who, unfortunately, has been diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer with complications waited six months to get the test. Are we collecting the right data about the stage at which people are being diagnosed with conditions such as cancer, compared with pre-Covid times? Are we collecting data on how many people are being diagnosed with such conditions?

I presume that Professor Leitch would be the best person to answer that question.

It is totally understandable that we have a capacity issue. There are only so many people who can work in our health service, and Covid has a significant impact on that. My point was about the collection of the data. I point to the potential issues that are coming down the line. I mention that because, in our most recent private session, when we heard from an expert clinician, it was suggested, in relation to our investigation into non-Covid-related conditions, that adequate data is not being collected to make the decisions that need to be made. It is crucial that such data is collected, given the potential future issues that we might face. Who would like to address that?

Thank you. I have one final question—I hope that you will forgive me for going here. A lot of data, especially initially, pointed to the fact that the morbidity from Covid came in tandem with high levels of obesity, diabetes and other comorbidity issues, including some of the cancers. That highlights to me that, if we want to treat Covid, we must look at health in a much more holistic way. Does that data not point to the fact that, in the long term, post-Covid, we need to look at our healthcare service in a different and more preventative manner, and do more to tackle the poor health of the nation?

I appreciate what you say Mr Swinney, but I am more concerned about the squeeze on global finances. What happens if another omicron comes along? That could squeeze us to a point where the global response would be limited. That is what I was trying to get at.

This committee is called the Covid-19 Recovery Committee, but week after week, as events overtake us, we struggle to get to the idea of recovery. I am going to try again to look ahead and ask what recovery looks like. We seem to be in a loop: at the very start, we were in lockdown, then along came vaccination and then along came the booster and now we are back into restrictions again. Are we now considering that this might be an indefinite cycle?

I remember asking Professor Leitch a couple of months ago when he thought that we would get back to some kind of normality and, back then—this is no criticism of him—he thought that it would happen in the spring for the United Kingdom and that it would take up to five years for the world. We now know that that is not the case. What does recovery from the virus look like? Are we just going to have to live with it indefinitely?