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The agenda is important to all of us, and I recognise that you have raised it regularly in this committee and in the chamber.

We recognise the importance of screening, which has the ability to save lives, across a variety of cancers. I recognise your point: we know that there are disparities in screening uptake between people in the least deprived areas and people in the most deprived areas, which is why there is a lot of focus on how we increase uptake.

I discussed that very issue recently with officials who are involved in the national screening programme. We talked about, for example, how we use mobile screening units. From memory, I think that we have more than 20 mobile screening units—and I should say that I am referring here to breast cancer. How do we use those mobile units to get into areas of higher deprivation? That illustrates some of the work that is being undertaken as we speak.

Going back to a point that Gillian Mackay made in her first question, how do we get more targeted communications to individuals in the areas of highest deprivation?

The third point that we are thinking about is how we ensure that there are appropriate voices from those communities where uptake is lower—among ethnic minority communities, for example. I know that you have asked about that. There are often intersectionalities with deprivation. In certain screening programmes, the uptake for ethnic minority women is lower than for their white Scottish counterparts. How do we use voices from minority communities—as opposed to a middle-aged white male doctor, for example, who of course has great clinical expertise but might not be as impactful as a female doctor from an Asian background, for instance—in speaking about the importance of going to screening appointments? There is a lot of effort and work going into that, as we recognise the disparities that exist.

The programme is going well. For the sake of brevity, it would be better for me to write to the committee with more detail. We are continually looking at how we can expand the ScotGEM programme and increase its capacity because of the value that we have seen even in its early years. My written response to the convener will include a number of things that I want to come back to the committee about and I am happy to give you some more detailed data about how that programme is going. Whenever I have conversations with my primary care team about GP services, ScotGEM is always seen as a critical component of that.

Absolutely—that is the primary focus of that work. I do not need to explain to Emma Harper that there are real issues with how rurality affects GP recruitment and retention. ScotGEM is an absolutely vital part of tackling that. We are taking forward some work after the report by Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie. I spoke to him last week about that work, which will be vital for sustainability. It is absolutely key to the rural challenges that we continue to face in GP practice and in primary care more generally.

Again, you have said nothing that I disagree with. Investing in our public services locally is so important. The member referenced libraries. A library in my constituency has not only a public space, but a quieter space where people can go online should they need to look at something that is particularly sensitive, subject to all the appropriate checks and safety measures that we would expect.

The member makes a good point in relation to exploring whether we can do more in GP practices and health centres. It would probably be easier to do that in larger health centres. We would need to consider how to do it in smaller locations where space is already at a premium. I will take that point away.

I will try to be brief. That issue has definitely gathered a fair bit of attention. Again, it will not be a surprise to anybody—I will not be articulating a state secret—when I say that, in our conversations, the RCGPS and the BMA have voiced concerns about some of the consultation proposals to move GPs from their current employment model into being employed as part of the national care service. We are yet to come to a determination on that but, at this stage, I think that they make quite persuasive and strong arguments for retention of the current employment model.

However, let us see how we are truly integrating primary care as part of the national care service. We have to do that, because integration has to be key. I will be careful what I say, because we are still going through the consultation responses, but with regard to the reformed integration joint boards proposal, again, we hope that there will, from the inception and creation of the national care service, be real integration with, for example, health boards. That will be vital. We are considering the consultation responses.

I have to be careful, because we are hurtling into the pre-election period, but my desire is to pick up the conversations—in particular with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—in earnest after the elections. I want to do so very quickly; I hope that the legislation on the national care service will be introduced to Parliament before we go into the summer recess. I look forward to being able to articulate our vision for the national care service in that period.

That is a really important question. First and foremost, where we can incentivise recruitment and retention in rural areas, we will certainly do that. Emma Harper spoke about the ScotGEM programme, which is an excellent example of that. There are also golden hellos, bursaries and the rediscover the joy programme. There are a number of programmes that I could point to in which the focus is on rural recruitment and retention.

Our ambition is to have 1,000 community link workers and mental health workers recruited by 2026, so that they are available in every GP practice in the country. I assure Sandesh Gulhane that that element of rural provision and island provision is central to our thoughts in that respect.

I will say a couple of things on that front. During the pandemic, there has been an explosion of interest in digital health and the accessing of health information digitally—out of necessity, no doubt. NHS Inform is a good example of a service that has been well used throughout the pandemic. I can perhaps share in my written response to the convener some of the data on how well NHS Inform has been used. That is also true for other digital platforms, with Near Me being the obvious example—its use has exploded.

Sue Webber’s point about a digital app is really important. One of the SNP’s manifesto commitments is to develop an NHS app, which will be a digital front door. We are working on that. Where it is sensible to have that discussion with other parts of the UK, we are doing—and will do—that. There is no point in reinventing the wheel if something already works particularly well. I know that you are not suggesting this, but we might not just be able to pluck an app from one part of the UK and transplant it here.

We have a really good relationship with the other health secretaries and ministers throughout the UK, so we can share that information and knowledge, and I would be keen to do that. There is a lot of progress to be made in that area. We are very focused on a potential digital front door app that can do a host of things from picking appointments to receiving results.

Good morning, convener. I hope that you and committee members are keeping safe and well. I can be very brief.

I thank the committee for its invitation to appear alongside my colleague Angus Robertson. When considering our budgetary decisions, it is important that we set them in the context of the health and social care portfolio’s key priorities and key challenges. I have just come from another committee of the Parliament, where I reiterated that it would be fair to say, from my conversations with health boards up and down the country, that this week is the most challenging week of the pandemic—if not the most, then one of the most challenging weeks. The feedback that we are getting is that it is extremely challenging. Of course, that is in the context of the past couple of years of this pandemic.

As we look forward, we need to reform the NHS and social care. How we do that and how we recover is clearly set out in the NHS recovery plan. NHS boards are facing a population with the cumulative effects of the last two years and all the health implications that come with that. That population is, thankfully, living longer, but that means that they have more complex needs. Maintaining current services while clearing the pandemic backlog and dealing with levels of staff absence are accumulative challenges.

We also need to develop the national care service, which will require significant investment. I do not say that because I do not acknowledge that the health and social care portfolio has the largest budget in Government, but because we have to think about that recovery in a way that is bold, radical and transformative.

I believe that culture and the arts can play a role in that. Just as we know that physical activity can increase our mood, help with sleep, and reduce stress and anxiety, undertaking cultural and arts activities can undoubtedly have a range of benefits. Bringing people closer together helps to reduce isolation. There is a clear potential for grass-roots community intervention such as the craft cafe in my own constituency in Govan.

I am keen to explore the benefits of broader health and wellbeing activities, including the role that culture can play, as part of our work on social prescribing. I am sure that we will get into the detail of that. Our 2021-22 programme for government made a commitment that, by 2026, every general practitioner practice will have access to a mental health and wellbeing service, which will help to grow community mental health resilience and direct social prescribing at a grass-roots level. The committee will be aware that, in October, we launched the communities mental health and wellbeing fund for adults, which has now been increased to £21 million. Although local third sector interface partners are still processing awards, we certainly expect that grass-roots cultural activities that contribute to community wellbeing will benefit from that fund. There is a range of examples. Again, I will not go into the details here about how that is already happening.

I will conclude. While my overarching focus must be on revitalising our NHS and social care as we recover from the pandemic, I see the benefits that cultural activities can bring to people’s physical and mental health not as a bolt-on but as an important and integral part of the recovery and transformation. We will certainly work together closely and have already had constructive meetings to see what more we can do to promote culture and the arts in our recovery and the renewal of the NHS and social care.

First, as my colleague referred to, we are not starting from base zero. It would be wrong to suggest that there has not been progress since the Christie commission 11 years ago. If you wish, I can give you numerous examples of inroads that we have managed to make in relation to outcomes from preventative spend. [Interruption.] Sorry, I am getting a bit of interference from somewhere.

We can give you those examples—I am happy to provide the committee with examples either now or in writing.

Community link workers are a such an example. We have 200 community link workers in or aligned to a GP practice or a GP cluster, so we are not starting from base zero. We talk about the 1,000 additional mental health and wellbeing workers. Every GP practice will have access to one of those workers, who will build on the good work of the 200 that we already have in place.

Secondly, we have the NHS recovery plan, which covers the parliamentary session. I am saying now very clearly that we will embed social prescribing as part of that, and of course culture and the arts will feature.

Then we have national leadership, which relates to the question that Dr Allan asked me. If I and the Government provide that leadership collectively, making clear our expectations of health boards, integration authorities and local authorities in relation to the importance of this agenda to our health and wellbeing—particularly focusing on and providing the necessary funding for key areas such as mental health, including young people’s mental health—I think that we will continue to make transformative change.

You are right to ask about budgets. I know very well the saying, which we hear often, “Show me your budget and I will tell you your priorities.” A record £18 billion is going into health and social care in the next financial year, and I am very keen to use the weight and muscle of that budget to support the outcomes that we have discussed.

That is a really good question, and it is not too dissimilar to a question that I have just had at the Covid-19 Recovery Committee and which was based on evidence from GPs and the staff-side representative organisations that represent them. The very clear message was that we needed to improve our primary care data. There is no getting away from that; indeed, I have been saying it from day 1 in this job. We also have to bear in mind the independent contractor model that we have for primary care, which is different to our NHS acute services model, and we have to work with those information technology systems to extract data far better than we are doing at the moment.

There is a project under way that has received some funding assistance to help us extract far greater data than we currently have. One good thing is that close to 95 per cent of GP practices participated in the initial extraction of data; that data has come to me, and once we have had it quality assured and so on, we will publish it. It is absolutely right to highlight this as a key issue. If you were to try to extract data on, for example, social prescribing, you would find it patchy. It has to be improved.