Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry, but could you speak up a little?

Secondly, I would like to ask how you can reassure us, and by doing so reassure the public, that, as an organisation, you will have a zero-tolerance attitude to racism and other forms of prejudice, bearing in mind not only the special responsibility that all public bodies have but the particular role of your organisation in expressing something of Scotland’s essential identity, character and story? How can you reassure us of that?

Clearly, many aspects of the range of issues have been reported in the press, including different dimensions of the situation at HES, all of which will have compounded the damage done to the public’s trust in the organisation and its reputation. I want to move on to the allegations of racism.

You will be aware, I am sure, that we are in a very dangerous time at the moment as a society, with overt racism as well as other forms of prejudice—anti-immigrant prejudice, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia—being normalised at a very high level. It is hugely important that a public organisation—particularly one that has a role in telling Scotland’s story of itself to us and to the world—takes these issues very seriously.

I will obviously not press you to get involved inappropriately in individual staff management issues. However, my first question is whether you have rejected the accuracy of any of the media reports that have been published about the allegations of racism and, in particular, about the damage that those allegations have done to your relationship with the University of Glasgow, which, it is reported, has suspended a joint project that you were working on with it in relation to slavery and empire. Are those media reports accurate, or have you challenged their accuracy?

I wonder whether it would be possible for you to follow up in writing and let us know the status of that work. It is an issue that the committee has been interested in previously.

Can I just tease out what you are saying a little bit? You say that you want people to be able to access the support that they need through the NHS without having to resort to going private, but previously you made a distinction between support and diagnosis. Diagnosis might lead to treatment—to a prescription—but support is something different. Support is valuable, but diagnosis and support are two different things. Are you saying that you want everyone to be able to access not only support in the broadest sense, but also diagnosis and, if appropriate, treatment through the NHS?

Given the scale of the demand that you have described, can that be delivered? Or should the Government be looking to provide, for example, more sustainable funding for third sector services that are run on a not-for-profit basis, which could help to expand capacity in a way that is specialised and perhaps more relatable?

Absolutely.

Okay. I beg your pardon.

I wish to move on to discuss the role of the private sector—and a few other members have questions on this theme, too. There are quite a few dimensions to discuss. We have heard concerns from some of the professional bodies about quality, about whether services are being provided to a recognised and agreed standard, and about whether there is too much emphasis on single-condition assessments, which could miss other aspects of a person’s situation.

From the point of view of individuals looking to access services, we have heard about the unfairness in the fact that private sector services will often be very much available to people who are well resourced, while others cannot access them or, in some cases, find themselves going into debt in order to access them. People may also have a frustration that, even if they have accessed a private diagnosis, it does not necessarily lead to access to the treatment that they want through the NHS.

There are also concerns from the third sector’s point of view about “private” being thought of as covering everything that is non-NHS. Although the third sector may be in a position to provide services on a not-for-profit basis—which, ethically, most of us would be more comfortable with—and although third sector organisations may often work in a way that is rooted within the lived experience of people who have greater familiarity with the issues, that does not necessarily come with stable funding, which can leave organisations feeling taken advantage of in terms of what they can deliver.

Thinking about all of those aspects, what, in short, do you think should be the role of the private sector or of non-NHS provision? Do you want that to be expanded? Do you want such provision to be brought into the NHS, so that the NHS is providing for people’s needs and people do not have to resort to the private sector? Where should things be going?

I do not know whether any colleagues wish to ask a supplementary question before I—

No, but I mean that medication needs to be prescribed.