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In relation to out-patient activity, you are right, it will take us the parliamentary term to reach that 10 per cent. In relation to additional in-patient and day-case activity, we hope to get there by 2022-23, so I hope that we will get to that 10 per cent a bit earlier. The significant increases in diagnostics are important.

I missed part of your question, but was it on particular pathways or referral pathways? Forgive me, my connection seems to be timing out.

In relation to our cancer pathways, we are already trying our best to get early diagnostics, which is a key part of trying to alleviate the pressures on the system. We know that if we get people that care earlier, particularly in relation to cancer treatment, they have a better chance of recovery, which means that they will be less likely to end up in our hospitals for longer. Our early cancer diagnostic centres are clearly a part of that. The earlier that we can get people referred into the system, such as early cancer diagnostic centres, the better chance we have of alleviating that pressure and seeing more people through the system. Obviously, we already have some of those early cancer diagnostic centres up and running.

We know how important that is for patients, customers and everyone in society. Whether we are talking about an app that gets Uber Eats to deliver food to a person’s house or an app that is linked to a public service such as health, ethical and secure storage of the data that the app gathers is hugely important.

One of the first meetings that I had as health secretary was with our cybersecurity team, who had brought in an external consultant who was helping us to work through the security in our NHS systems. They are doing a good amount of detailed work.

We are going to publish a refreshed digital health and care strategy that will commit to the development of our first ever dedicated data strategy for health and social care, and will include detailed consideration of how to increase our citizens’ trust in data sharing, and of how to ensure that there is transparency in the system. We need to unlock the value of health and care data in a way that ensures that the data can be safeguarded and that there is full transparency over how it is used.

The security of the data is important; cybersecurity testing has already been carried out for all the other major systems, including Near Me. With regard to our Covid certification—which is a very topical issue—we will ensure that we have up-to-date security provision in place, particularly when the app is ready to go live at the end of this month.

Those are really important questions. We are looking proactively at how we can further incentivise out-of-hours working, because we know how challenging that is and how important it is to the recovery. As Ms Mackay will appreciate, we have to work with the trade unions and staff-side representatives on that to ensure that they are comfortable with what is being proposed. We are looking to finalise a lot of the detail on that.

An important issue that Ms Mackay touches on, which I am happy to say more about if we get into this in more detail, is wellbeing. Wellbeing is important not just for out-of-hours staff but for everybody. My first visit as health secretary was in Lanarkshire, and I was blown away by the testimony that I heard from healthcare workers and NHS staff more generally. As members can imagine, I spoke to porters, cleaning staff, doctors, nurses and everybody in between, and they all told me the same thing. It did not matter what their job was, they were knackered. They were really tired because of the past 18 months. That is why we are investing £8 million in their wellbeing. For brevity, I will not go into detail right now, but a whole range of services is available, some of which are very specialist. If we are going to ask NHS staff to help us with the recovery, which is vital, we are going to have to make sure that their wellbeing is paramount.

It goes even further than that. In effect, it will give relatives of care home residents rights that are akin to those of care home staff. Of course, the final shape of Anne’s law will be up to the consideration of the committee and the Parliament as a whole, but those rights will be embedded in statute.

I seem to have lost my connection. I heard you say that you had spoken to the BMA.

That is all in our NHS recovery plan. We will meet that 10 per cent increase for out-patient activity by the end of the parliamentary session. By the end of the session, in-patient and day-case activity should increase by closer to 20 per cent. You will find that on page 5 of the recovery plan, where we go into detail about how we will increase in-patient activity, out-patient activity and diagnostic activity year on year.

I am still waiting for the detail, but I note that the UK Government is due to make an announcement on its plans today and, from what I have heard communicated in the media, my understanding is that it will also try to increase capacity by 10 per cent. I am pleased that the UK Government has seen that ambition in our recovery plan and will try to match it.

I will repeat what I said to Mr O’Kane earlier: we will of course be ambitious, but we will also be realistic about the timescales that it will take to clear those backlogs and get our NHS back to complete normality.

That depends on what system we are talking about, although we obviously have to comply with all the regulations in statute and, ultimately, we are accountable to the Information Commissioner’s Office with regard to how we use that data. That is exceptionally important. Who the data controller is will depend on the system in question, but if it gives Dr Gulhane comfort, I can tell him that we already engage regularly with the ICO on development and introduction of new systems. Moreover, our cybersecurity centre of excellence is working hand in glove with practitioners on the ground not only on our current systems but on the development of new systems.

Of course, I do not need to tell Dr Gulhane any of this—he will be well aware from his other role in primary care that our practitioners on the ground are usually well aware of their responsibilities in handling data. However, I am more than happy to hear suggestions if we need to do more, particularly with regard to the development of new systems.

I can give—[Inaudible.]—in writing if that is helpful. The first early cancer diagnostic centres are of course already open and, with such initiatives, it is so important that we do a proper evaluation before we decide to roll them out even further. We have procured external evaluation from an academic institution, and that will provide important monitoring and, I hope, positive evaluation.

I went to the early cancer diagnostic centre at the Victoria hospital in Fife and I was really impressed. It had been open only for a few weeks but staff there had already detected early cancers in a number of patients. Although cases were small in number, the impact on the NHS and those individuals and their families will have been great.

The first centres need to bed in, and we need to get the data and analyse what is happening. The evaluation will inform the roll-out of further centres.

I note that early cancer diagnostic centres are one tool; I was also at the centre for sustainable delivery that is based at the Golden Jubilee hospital. If the committee would like to visit the CFSD, staff there will be more than happy to host you—I highly recommend a visit. They are looking at a variety of innovative technologies, such as colon capsules, that will help with not just detection of cancers but the speed at which that can be done and the comfort of the patient while it is being done. The ECDCs are important, but they are one tool among a range of tools that I am hoping to deploy to help us with the diagnostic part of the cancer journey. We know that it is the diagnostic side that is letting us down so that we do not meet the 62-day target.

Ideally, that would be the best way to do it. We know that getting people with lived experience to co-design not just our policies but our services is very important. From your involvement, convener, you will know that the women’s health plan had at its heart a co-design process that involved women who had lived experience of a range of conditions. The women’s health plan’s coverage of menopause, periods, endometriosis and a number of other health aspects was informed by women who had lived experience of them.

Ultimately, the best way to develop clinics that are specifically for menopause is by hearing from women who have suffered some of its more challenging effects so that we can make sure that the service is built around them. There is no point in building the service structure, then fitting people into it. It is much better to hear from people and devise a system that is built around them.