The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 844 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
Thank you for acknowledging the importance of listening to people with lived experience. In the role that I carry out, which is focused on public health and women’s health, the best support that we can get is from people who have experienced trauma and from those who have had positive experiences in healthcare. It is important to acknowledge that.
The evidence session that you had with Steven Short from the Save a Life for Scotland partnership, Kirsty Morrison from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and Kym Kestell from the British Heart Foundation was really important, because you were able to tease out a lot of detailed information from them on the work that has been going on regarding out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
I represent Argyll and Bute, which has a wide footprint and fewer urban areas. When I was first elected, I heard about decisions on the location of defibrillators and the volume of them on islands. There was, I think, one per 1,000 of the population there, which, in theory, meant that Mull would have only three. In considering the expanse of Mull, the community recognised that they needed an awful lot more defibrillators, so they did a lot of community fundraising. I recognise that that has happened across Scotland. I commend the support that we get from the British Heart Foundation in helping people to purchase defibrillators for their communities.
It is clear that one size does not fit all, as came through in the evidence that you heard from Steven Short and Kym Kestell. PADmap is a great help in allowing us to focus on where there is need. Kym Kestell stated that people who live in the more deprived areas of Scotland are more likely to experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, so there is a need for defibrillators in those areas.
You specifically asked about what the Scottish Government is doing. As you heard from Steven Short, we are active partners in Save a Life for Scotland. As I noted in my opening remarks, as a result of the recent meeting that Save a Life for Scotland had with Rodger and Lesley Hill, we received a submission from them, which we are currently considering. We will make decisions on the best way for the Scottish Government to ensure that we have the right placement of defibs across all of Scotland’s vast and beautiful geography.
09:45Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
I absolutely agree that there is no intransigence. Davy Russell pressed me on the targets, which are there because we expect to meet them. However, as knowledge changes, we need to be flexible enough to ensure that we provide the people of Scotland with the right support for their health.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
We usually tweet and do other things during awareness-raising campaigns, but I am very happy to take away that suggestion. Members also have access to the PADmap tool, and it is possible to tweet the URL for that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
It contains additional information on inherited cardiac conditions.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
As I said, the UK NSC is an independent body. Our chief medical officer is represented on it, along with the other three chief medical officers. I think that the fact that we have written to the UK NSC emphasises the Scottish Government’s interest in its work timetable. As I said, however, the UK NSC makes decisions based on robust evidence that has been peer reviewed, and we need to ensure that that process is followed properly and correctly.
10:00Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Jenni Minto
I am sure that Mr Ewing is aware of the impressive and thought-provoking time for reflection contribution that we heard from Cameron McGerr in the chamber a few weeks ago. I happened to be sitting next to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. The three of us have written to Cameron. I was hoping to have heard where the matter had got to, but we are hoping that a group of us, if not all three of us, will be able to meet Cameron to hear more from him about the importance of ensuring that young children receive CPR training, as he recognised.
I have also had the privilege of meeting a father and son. The son was able to save his father’s life because of the CPR training that he had received in early secondary and later in secondary school. I recognise the importance of that training. As you will appreciate, education does not sit in my portfolio, but I am content to speak further with the Cabinet Secretary for Education about the issue. We can come back to the committee once we have met Cameron McGerr.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
I will hand over to Professor Bauld to answer that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
We have had a number of conversations about that issue in looking at the bill. We have raised challenges on that, because we recognise that some products might be described as rechargeable simply because they have a USB point in them. The bill has been drafted as broadly as possible. There is a requirement that, if something has a removable coil, it would be defined under the bill as not being rechargeable. That is the work that we have been doing on that.
I absolutely recognise that we need to make sure that we capture all the new products that are coming in; the bill has been drafted as broadly as possible.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
That is a good question. We were talking about that earlier. The LCM will allow us to include digital ways of getting identification, but it will not stop the use of paper identification. We will not be repealing provisions on the use of paper forms of identification from the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 until we have new regulations in place.
We will do some consultation on the regulations to ensure that we get them right, but it is through the important conversations that we have with trading standards and the regulatory review group representing businesses that we will understand the best way of implementing them if the decision is made to do so.
As I highlighted earlier, we also have the updated register, which will allow us to push out information to retailers, so that they are kept informed of any changes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 6 May 2025
Jenni Minto
I often speak to officials about that. We currently have ASH Scotland doing a review of how smoke-free spaces around hospitals are being enforced. We will use that to look at the possibility of having other spaces, perhaps. Consultation is important, so we will have that work as part of an evidence base, but we will then go out and consult more widely, as I have highlighted before, with RRG and other organisations.