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I will bring in Ms Davidson to provide more detail on that in a second. Ms Whitham is correct in her assessment of the intended direction of travel of the charter and legislation. Along with the First Minister, I was at the launch of the charter, which is an internationally recognised piece of work that further embeds service users’ understanding of their rights to access treatment and services and the greater support that those things should provide. I cannot take a position on the potential impact of the bill, but the committee has heard evidence that suggests that it has the potential to conflate some the elements of rights and the treatment that is available. Should the bill be enacted, I believe that it would be the first time that a right to a treatment would be provided in legislation. That is not incorporated in any other aspect of health and social care. In and of itself, that is a potential challenge.

As there is legal interaction on the matter, I will defer to Ms Davidson.

We do not have a timescale for that at this stage. Work is under way to review not only the national mission on drugs and drug-related harm but where we are with alcohol services. We have had a number of sessions with a wide variety of stakeholders, including those with lived and living experience of substance dependency—alcohol and drugs—to look at the areas that Ms Mochan is interested in. Our intention is to set out our plan at the conclusion of the national mission, which will be at the end of this parliamentary session. We are cognisant that the work is demonstrably not complete and that we still have much work to do. Although the national mission is coming to a conclusion, there is still work to be done. We are embarking on a review of the efficacy and performance of various aspects of the national mission, as well as our alcohol interventions. We will set out our plans for both before the end of this year.

It is for the member in charge of the bill to discuss some of those elements rather than for the Government to take a position on them at this stage.

I have read with interest some of the evidence that has been taken. Concerns have also been expressed about the need for a diagnosis to access services, as opposed to those services being available for anyone seeking help. I stress the importance of making sure that we get this right for everybody. We want to meet people where they are—I return to that phrase—and make services accessible, rather than exclusionary, at all points. Those points have already been made in evidence to the committee.

I cannot comment on what should be in the bill, but, as somebody who grew up in an island community, I recognise the challenges of rural service delivery.

Ms Mackay talked about recognising the importance of the multidisciplinary team, and that importance extends to the community and voluntary sector groups that Ms Harper referenced. A number of organisations in rural and island communities can be the first point of interaction and can provide the first opportunity for engagement on a recovery pathway, so it is important that we continue to ensure that that breadth of opportunity for engagement exists through support for community and voluntary organisations. That point has certainly come through in the round-table discussions and stakeholder interaction that I talked about in response to Ms Mochan’s question. That work will continue over the coming months.

I will bring in Ms Zeballos at this point.

As we are setting out the tools and seeing the act being implemented in local areas, and as we see the response that comes back from boards on how they are reviewing and ensuring that they have safe staffing levels, of course we keep under review areas such as those that have been suggested by the Royal College of Nursing. The process is dynamic and flexible—it is not a one-size-fits-all approach—so that we can deal with potential elements that need to be worked on as the legislation is implemented. We keep under review concerns such as those from the Royal College of Nursing that Mr Gulhane has raised.

I thank Emma Harper for that question, because she has illustrated what I was setting out in response to Sandesh Gulhane about the processes that are in play in all environments, in both health and social care, and what must be taken into consideration in order to understand what will be a safe staffing level for a particular shift.

Emma Harper rightly points to the fact that a number of factors will be dynamic and have to be flexible. In the example that she provided, the number of people who are intubated or in intensive care and requiring ventilation would change depending on the number of patients who are in that particular unit at that time. There is an understanding of that. The safe staffing legislation provides transparency around the tools that are used, the way in which the safe staffing level is determined, and ensuring that we comply with that across the NHS and social care estate. That is essentially what the legislation is designed to do.

I have engaged directly with the RCN, its leadership and its lay committee on many points since the decision was taken. With regard to the perceived delay, it was an issue on which I understood that there were very strong feelings from colleagues within the trade union movement, and I engaged with them to hear their perspective before I came to a decision. I took my time to come to that decision, because I recognised the strength of feeling on the matter, but also because of what I was being told and the advice that I was being given on ensuring that we safely implemented the commitment to reduce the working week.

There was no agreement in place about how we would arrive at the 36 hours. Given that the commitment in the pay deal was to get to 36 hours, I believe that I am implementing that deal by getting to 36 hours as of next April. I also believe that I am doing it in the responsible way, by having an implementation plan that takes place over the course of this year and that involves local area partnerships, the Scottish terms and conditions committee and the national trade union representative body. We will see draft plans coming through in May and confirmed plans from boards in October, and that will ensure that our approach to implementation guarantees that 36 hours will be arrived at in April of next year.

I absolutely understand what has been said, and I have engaged on the matter with almost all the relevant trade unions—I still have some to come—but, as I have said, this is Government delivering on the pay deal. We have not reneged. I understand the perception of the phasing of all of this and how people thought that it was going to be implemented, but there was no agreement as to how that would be done from Government. Therefore, I believe that we are delivering on the agreement that we set out in the pay deal two years ago.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to the committee. I will briefly set out the reasons for the amendments to the National Health Service (Common Staffing Method) (Scotland) Regulations.

The amendments, which are relatively technical in nature, largely take account of changes that are linked to the implementation of the reduced working week for agenda for change staff. The first half-hour reduction in the working week for those staff was implemented on 1 April last year. It is clearly important that the staffing tools that are provided for under the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 are adjusted to reflect the new definition of whole-time equivalent working hours. Further amendments will be required at the point at which we deliver the 36-hour working week, on 1 April 2026.

I reiterate for the avoidance of any doubt that the Scottish Government is delivering on its commitment to implement the reduced working week by 1 April 2026. I look forward to staff feeling the full benefit of that change. A clear delivery plan is being set out to give confidence regarding its delivery.

As part of the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019, the common staffing method sets out a process, including the use of tools and the consideration of a range of other factors, to determine appropriate staffing levels. Those tools will need to be updated and supplemented periodically, and corresponding updates to secondary legislation will be required. The tools provide a useful source of information to support local decision making, and they form part of a wider set of systems and processes that were introduced by the 2019 act to support effective workforce planning.

To be clear, the intention is not to prescribe what staffing numbers are appropriate or to set recommended ratios at the national level. Such an approach would lack the flexibility to account for local circumstances and would fail to take account of the dynamic nature of healthcare services and the care that they are required to deliver. Instead, the approach is designed to support robust and transparent local decision making.

It is important to recognise that this is the first year following the commencement of the 2019 act and that, as more resources become available and learning takes place in the years to come, we will naturally see incremental improvements in the approach that is taken to compliance. That is not to say that some benefits are not already being felt. I am aware of work that is being done across the system to review staffing establishments as part of broader efforts to ensure that our services are fit for purpose and able to respond to the demands that we can reasonably anticipate. The act has added impetus to those efforts, and we will learn more about health boards’ experience of implementing the legislation when we receive their annual reports in the coming weeks.

I will re-engage with the Parliament later this year to give an update on the Scottish Government’s plans in the light of the evidence that continues to emerge. I will, of course, be happy to take questions from committee members.

No. I will bring in Christopher Thompson in a second. The tools are there to help to inform different parts of the system to ensure that staffing levels are appropriate. There is a duty on local boards to report to ministers on their staffing levels. Ministers must lay those reports and respond to them, which I will do later this year.

Christopher can correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that we have had any concerns expressed.