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[Inaudible.]—your 20 per cent increase. One of the other commitments is for the mental health share of health spend, which is currently around 8.8 per cent, to rise to 10 per cent. We are kind of stuck on 8.8 per cent at present because, effectively, we have just had a restoration of the cut due to the emergency budget review. What is the push ahead to that 10 per cent target? Will we get there? What is your view on how achievable that target is?

Are the boards moving quickly enough on those proposals to achieve cost avoidance? If you are going to expend on those capital programmes, will you avoid revenue expenditure? Are you pressing boards on the need to bring proposals forward more quickly?

I thank Mr Miller for coming today. Information that was obtained by a freedom of information request shows that, in recent years, there has been an extreme increase in the number of dental calls to NHS 24. In 2018-19, there were 25,509 calls but, in 2022-23, there were 67,189 calls. Your submission explains that a new urgent care model that seeks to minimise onward referral is in place

“for all but dental and some pharmacy calls”.

How has NHS 24 adapted to manage that increase in demand with regard to calls about dental complaints?

Data has shown that the number of mental health related calls to NHS 24 increased from 20,434 in 2019 to 139,008 in 2022, which by my calculation is a 580 per cent increase, which is an extraordinary number. Has that overwhelmed you? It seems an incredible figure that is not necessarily proportionate to the extra resources that you have been able to put into the service. How have you been able to adapt to that significant increase in demand?

From what you are saying, that certainly sounds like a promising process improvement, and I hope that it will yield significant results. You mentioned that one of the key sticking points is the interface with emergency departments at acute hospitals. Last week, we heard about a pilot that is being trialled in some health boards to ease demand on emergency departments, whereby ambulance crews phone ahead to speak to an emergency medicine consultant, who decides whether it is best for the patient to be presented to the A and E department or to a different facility. Do you have an insight on the system that is being trialled? Could it be scaled up to ease demand on emergency departments on a national scale?

The context is the severe budgetary pressures that are being faced by healthcare, so it is not just about demand. The mental health budget has, in effect, been frozen in cash terms this year, with the cut to mental health being restored to bring it back to the level that it was at last year. What impact has that had on your services? Have you been able to offer an alternative interface or are you feeling the pressure as well?

Thank you for joining us today. I have a question regarding the codes that were mentioned in your submission. You indicated that red and purple are assigned to emergency calls, but, despite those emergency markers, I understand that red or purple call patients can still wait hours to get a response. I am familiar with one constituency case in which a red call patient waited six hours and 50 minutes for a response. Paramedics and your team are trying exceptionally hard in impossible circumstances. What can the Scottish Government do to support the service and improve response times to such critical calls, and how can the system improve the flow of returns?

You mentioned that flow navigation is implemented in one form or another across all territorial boards. You are in a fairly unique position in that you sit across all those boards and have that perspective. How dynamic and adaptive are the territorial boards in sharing best practice? Are you able to indicate where approaches are doing well elsewhere that could be adapted across the nation as a whole and bring everyone up to a higher performance level?

I want to pick up an issue that is frequently raised by police officers, which is the amount of time that they spend dealing with cases that they do not feel qualified to address or capable of dealing with. The number of calls made to Police Scotland in which a mental health crisis or a suicide risk was cited increased by almost 10,000, from 14,540 in 2018 to 23,406 in 2022.

You mentioned the pilot of triage cars, three of which are operating in Scotland at the moment. Do you feel that there is an opportunity to look at a business case to expand that model if it is shown to be a more effective and more cost-effective solution, given the huge costs that are incurred by the police in responding to incidents involving people who have a known history of calling the police on such issues or incidents with which they are not qualified to deal when they arrive at the scene?

It seems to be clear that the dental and mental health areas are significant parts of the overall healthcare system that are under serious pressure. How sustainable is it for NHS 24 to be the first point of contact, and how effective can it be to refer on when there is not the capacity in the other services to which you are signposting? Do you feel that that approach is sustainable as part of the overall model?