 Dziwwch. Fyddai hi gafodd i'r cy conflictswyrnig sydd wedi gael'u galiad, fyddai hwn i i'ch gael gydigol unig fel gwiddilyniad arfer, lle roedd yn dydd o'r cyffin ac i'n fyddwyr ein hollwni'r cyffin ei hitrol. Dbynedd, dwi'n ddwy fydd ac i'ch gael'u cyffin ei hunigol yn eu gwstio. Felly, dwi'n ddwy fyddwyr ar gael unigol yw hwn i'ch gael'u cyffin eich cyffin ei tawr, yn mô Springfield 8 i 19, naion wirrwm yn amd rent yn siaradau nouss balanced rules to ensure that Lothian, late diagnosed with deaf children, gets the support that they need. That debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press their request to speak buttons. I would also take this opportunity to advise members that for obvious reasons there is a lot of interest in members participating in this debate. We will be resuming our business this afternoon in the chamber at 2pm and therefore there is no time in hand and members must stick to the speaking allocation that they have been given in their contributions. Thank you very much indeed and with that I call on Jeremy Balfour to open the debate up to seven minutes please Mr Balfour. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to thank colleagues from across the chamber for coming to today's debate and supporting the motion for members' business. There is often a lot of focus on the areas in which we disagree in this Parliament and it makes for better spectator sport and grabs more headlines. But I am encouraged that over the past months a group of cross-party MSPs have managed to come together and find a solution to this issue. I think that our Parliament is the best when we represent work together for the sake of our constituents. In 2021, an audit of NHS Lothian Pediatrics Audiology Service revealed that a great number of children have been missed in diagnosing serious hearing problems. This has led to many children under the age of 12 growing up without any support to deal with an auditory disability. Can you imagine how difficult that must be for a parent and a child alike? Presiding Officer, today's debate is significant. We are talking about real families and real lives. The family represented by the flag group have been through a real ordeal and have had to fight hard to be heard. I hope that this debate can be a catalyst for change and prompt for answers. It is good to see a number of families here in the gallery this afternoon, and I am sure that colleagues across the chamber will join me in working on them, because those families deserve answers. There are so many questions that are still left unanswered. Looking forward, Presiding Officer, we have to do better. We must ensure that the support that those families get is better and that it has so far been awfully lacking. Time and again, we hear from them about the massive gaps in the care that has been provided, basic things such as British language and speech and language purpose are not providing. This is care, not luxury. It is fundamental to the development of these children, and it is already the care that these children should be given top priority. The number of families affected by this issue in Malovians is estimated at around 150. However, the truth is that we do not know the true number as the audit carried out by the British Academy of Audiology did not include children that were seen later than in 2018. There could be a number of additional cases in Malovians that have been missed. It must be a priority to identify all those in short order and ensure that they are provided with the top level of support that they require. Pay tribute to the countries that he has made. What he has just highlighted is central to the issue. I think that there is a question whether or not the 800 or so cases that were took part in that audit are comprehensive. I do not doubt the work that has been undertaken, but there have been a number of triage steps that have meant that only 155 cases were identified of serious concern and that only six additional cases of hearing loss were identified. Does he agree with me that we need to re-examine both that initial sample and the triage steps to ensure that every individual is identified? Ultimately, it is very difficult to reconcile what the health board says with the experiences that we have heard from families. I might come on to that and develop that slightly in a moment if that will care with the member. It is clear that we are not addressing this issue correctly. With the gaps mentioned and the unknown number of unidentified cases, it has become increasingly clear that carrying on as we have will not cut it. We are in desperate need of progress and progress will not come without oversight. Having had a number of meetings, we as a cross-party group of MSPs of NHS Lorian are not capable of organising and providing such needed support without some kind of accountability. Therefore, along with a number of my colleagues and the flag families, we are calling the Scottish Government to do two things. First, for the minister to meet with the cross-party group of MSPs to discuss what can be done at the Government level to address the situation, and I hope that the minister, as someone up, will agree to that meeting as urgently as possible. Secondly, we are calling for the minister to commission a third-party audit to review the whole process over the past number of years and monitor whether families are getting the support that they need. They would have all the necessary powers to investigate and present their findings to the Parliament and to Government after nine months. Based on those findings, we can move forward ensuring that adequate care is provided. I hope that the minister will confirm in her rounding up that her willingness to work with us in this way. We have to get this right. The children families represented by the flag cannot afford to continue to be failed. Finally, I want to come to the issue of trust. Trust takes a long time to build up and can be lost in an instant. There has been a breakdown between flag families and the institutions that were supposed to look after them. We need to make every effort to assure them that we do care, we are sorry and we are motivated to rewrite all wrongs that have occurred in this matter. That is not something that will be achieved passively. It will take focused efforts to make amends and allow our families to regain their trust. Once again, this is not an abstract or non-important issue. This is serious, life-watering and those families have experienced something that no family in Scotland should have to experience. We owe it to them to make sure that it is fixed and I hope that today will be another step in that process. Mr Balfour, we now move to the open part of the debate, our mind members' contributions of up to four minutes. I call Fiona Hyslop to be followed by Oliver Mundell. I thank John Balfour for securing this debate. I am also one of the cross-party group of Lothian's MSPs pursuing this issue and I appreciate the minister's new and post. I hope to reflect on why we have got to where we are and I am impressed that the issue is as much for the education authorities as it is for the health authorities. I think that the seriousness of the issue when it first arose was taken very seriously indeed by the health service and I recall by the then health secretary, Humza Yousaf, when he was First Minister. Clearly, I recognised what NHS did at the time and what the Government did in examining what had come to pass and how we had got to the situation where there were misdiagnosis. At that time, when we were told as a group of MSPs that the families had been identified and were being supported, we perhaps made some assumptions. Those assumptions were not just that they were being told about what happened in the diagnosis period, but that the support that they were getting would be specific, additional and on-going. There may be that we should have pursued that more at that time and I think that we can all acknowledge that. I think that then what happened was that the processes to rectify what had happened were very internal to the NHS, to NHS Lothian. They wanted to make sure that they understood what had gone wrong and fixed their services for the future and that lessons that were learned would then be shared and procedures checked nationally. I think that that has happened. However, it leaves us in the situation where we have had some doubts because of the flag families coming to us and saying that some of us, we think our families and our children have not been identified. Therefore, that has begged the question, actually, did they ever identify all those affected? Then, pursuing that issue across party basis, we have had a number of meetings and we have tried to understand what those issues have been. The issues that we think are outstanding is, have all children affected been identified? We know that there are 150 families, 155 children that had been identified from the 1,007 patients that had been identified as part of the sample, but it was a sample basis. I understand that that will be common procedure for NHS when issues are trying to be pursued. They take samples, but that does not necessarily identify everybody. Now, there was a lot of high-profile media at that time, people might have thought, is my child affected. I also think that there was an issue around the transfer of information. What happened when there was an understanding of the problem? Why weren't education authorities even told specifically about the 155 children? Why were the education authorities not informed specifically about those children? We have also been told by NHS Lothian when we met them that there were confidentiality issues around that. I want to pursue that somewhat, because there is an issue about when does the internal protocols of confidentiality in any institution trump children's welfare. That was an issue that we pursued when I was in opposition and when I was Cabinet Secretary for Education. There was a real need to make sure that all institutions shared information when a child's welfare was in question. In that case, I think that one of the things that the minister should consider with her education and children's cause is why were the education authorities not told about the names of those children affected? Or why wasn't there measures or even letters given to the individual parents so that they could present them saying, my child, my you have been affected, etc? I think that the issue that we need to resolve what happens now—I need to close now. Minister, please take this seriously. We are coming to you from a cross-party basis and we want to get help for those children and we want to make sure that we can identify those that are in need. Please listen to us. Thank you, Ms Hyslop. I take this opportunity to remind all members who wish to speak in the debate that they need to press the request to speak button. I call Oliver Mundell to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Clearly, I am not a Lothian MSP, but I follow the issue. It is something that I do in my time on the education committee and other things that I have seen pop up. It is very interesting listening to Fiona Hyslop in her contribution, not forgetting to congratulate Jeremy Balfour on securing the debate. His contribution was excellent, but it is that disconnect for people. I cannot believe that we are here in 2023 sometime after the issue came to light and families are still facing difficulties getting the services to work together and to deliver for their young people. It speaks to broader pressures that exist within the system that even where we know families have been failed, we still cannot get it right for them. I think that that should concern members right across the chamber. I know that the minister is new in post, but I am sure that she will want to try to help people to move forward because, of course, that is what people want to do. Members who have spoken so far are right. In order to understand the importance of that, we have to recognise the grave injustice that has taken place. For me, it really puts it into stark terms when you look at, as was highlighted at the time, by the National Deaf Children's Society, the stark disparity in average identification in Lothians compared to in other parts of the country that we could be having people elsewhere in the UK being identified within 109 days on average, but in Lothians it was 4.5 years. Even if it is a small group of families that has been waiting a very, very long time, something has gone very badly wrong to see that difference. We know that the sad truth is that professional standards were not followed. There were poor management protocols. I just think that that level of carelessness is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. I am not confident that everything within audiology is working well now. Across the country, not just in Lothians, audiology services are under huge pressure. One of my big concerns is that, because there are no audiology services in the community for adults, obviously children should be seen by the NHS, but because there is community, audiology services do not exist. There are a huge number of people on audiology lists taking up space in our hospitals for routine things around hearing aids, removing earwax, while those who need audiology services and that specialist support are waiting far too long. We know that, even when families and young people get that diagnosis, they are not getting the support. It is hard to hear in Scotland today. We have not got it right. For all the technological improvements that I have seen with constituents and also with a member of staff that I had here in this Parliament, things are just not there for them. Speech and language waiting lists far too long, problems getting BSL interpreters, problems accessing basic services. People told when they phone up Government services, council services that there is no one there who can speak to them or if they have capacity, someone else cannot speak to them. There are problems for people every single day and the families that are here have been failed. I cannot believe that we are not able to get it right for them, let alone all those other people who have seen their potential diminished. I just asked the minister to take the calls from across the Parliament very seriously and to do what the Scottish Government can to get things right. I thank Jeremy Balfour for securing the debate and for the content of his contribution. The failings identified in the 2021 audit of NHS Lothian's paediatric audiology service were both shocking and potentially serious consequences. We might never have known about the scale of the problem, was it not for the determination of those parents and indeed the national deaf children's society who fought tirelessly for answers. Children were prevented from gaining early access to hearing technology and not supported to learn sign language when they needed it. The effect of that on those children could well be profound. There is no doubt that those children have been failed. Do not forget that the audit of the service did not include children who were born post-2018, so there may be many more children who have yet to be diagnosed. For those children who have been diagnosed, their parents are still having to campaign for the support that they need due to the original failings of NHS Lothian. The families failed by Lothian audiology action group have outlined areas where support is needed, including access to BSL tutors, speech and language therapy and remediation for those children affected. Since 2011, there has been a 40 per cent decline in the number of qualified teachers of the deaf across Scotland, with falls also reported for specialist speech and language therapists and communication support workers. There is currently no dedicated in-school resource provision for deaf children in the Lothian and Borders area, such as St. Rock's in Glasgow. Without access to resources like that, deaf children with complex needs are still being failed. In response to a question that I raised last year on the audiology scandal, Humza Yousaf stated that of the 125 families who had been identified, they had been offered a retest. Only 39 children had actually had it done. That was in May. Can the minister give me an assurance that, a year on, every child that needs one has been given a retest? For all those children who were born after 2018, they too have been properly diagnosed, because every child whose hearing and payment was missed deserves co-ordinated long-term support from health, education and social work. I understand that the Scottish Government still has not published the national review of audiology that it commissioned and was due in January this year. Maybe I have got that wrong. Can the minister perhaps advise the chamber and, in doing so, tell us why there is a hold-up? With every day of further delay, more children suffer. By failing to first identify those children's deafness and then not providing the support that they need, there is a risk that they will be failed over again. That cannot be allowed to happen. Urgency is the very least that we can offer those children and their families. Action now, not later. I very much agree and associate myself with Fiona Hyslop's comments, because it is a cross-party approach that has been taken. That is too important to play about with. We need to ensure that there are no more scandals like this in Lothian or, indeed, anywhere else ever again. Once again, I thank Jeremy Balfour for his contribution, and I hope that the minister will respond positively to the debate. I now call Karen Adam to be followed by Sandesh Gohani, Ms Adam. Thank you, Presiding Officer. While I am not a Lothian representative, the issue is incredibly close to my heart. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Jeremy Balfour for bringing in this crucial debate to the chamber today. Ensuring that late diagnosed deaf children receive the support that they desperately need, not only in Lothian but across Scotland, is of utmost importance. As a CODA, which is CODA, a child of a deaf adult, I have witnessed the challenges faced by those living and affected by deafness. Those experiences have deepened my understanding of the immense significance of the motion before us today. As we have heard, the 2021 audit of NHS Lothian's paediatric audiology service, which is conducted by BAA, has exposed serious failings. We cannot ignore, as colleagues have said before me, that it does not include children seen after 2018. That is deeply concerning, as we know that the crucial stages for fluent first language development occur in the early years. Shockingly, the BAA report reveals that the average age of identification of deafness in children within the NHS Lothian area is four and a half years, far surpassing figures from other regions in Scotland. By the time of diagnosis, the critical period for language and communication development has often passed, leading to adverse consequences that might affect their entire lives. It is heart-wrenching to think of the missed opportunities and the uphill battles that they will face. Many of those children will require extensive support from health, education, social work and various agencies to address their complex needs. Of course, let us take a moment to acknowledge the families failed by Lothian audiology action group flag, an inspiring collective composed of families directly affected by those failings. Through their tireless efforts, they shine a light on the challenges faced by deaf children and their families. Those challenges include lesser access to British Sign Language tutors, speech and language therapy and appropriately qualified professionals. Without those essential resources, we deny those children the opportunity to develop their language skills and remediate any damage caused by the failures of the audiology service. We must recognise that the impact of late diagnosis goes beyond the immediate effects on individual children and the obstacles they face in education, employment and social integration. It reverberates throughout families, communities and our society as a whole. Without proper support, their potential will be stifled and may limit their opportunities for personal growth and their ability to contribute to society. To address that pressing issue, we must establish robust systems that guarantee timely and accurate diagnosis for all children, regardless of their geographical location or background. We must invest wholeheartedly in early intervention programmes that focus on providing the necessary support from the moment a child's hearing difficulties are diagnosed. By doing so, we can maximise their potential, allowing them to thrive and overcome the barriers that they face. The deaf community offers a committed support network for individuals and families affected by hearing loss, with online communities, local associations and support groups, a sense of belonging and understanding flourishes. Such platforms provide a space for sharing experiences, exchanging information and finding solace in the journeys of others. Deaf role models and success stories illuminate the path forward, serving as beacons of hope and inspiration. They demonstrate unequivocally that a late diagnosis does not define one's potential for a fulfilling and successful life if that support is there. In closing, I hope that those children receive the justice that they deserve, but above all, I want them to know that their potential for a fulfilling future is limitless. Alongside Jeremy Balfour and others, I will continue to work tirelessly and across party lines to ensure that they have every opportunity to thrive. I now call Stanis Gohani to be followed by Carol O'Hinn, Dr Gohani. I wish to declare personal interest as a practising NHS doctor. Today, sadly, we are discussing widespread failings by one of Scotland's largest health boards. Failings that severely impacted families and their vulnerable children. Some of these families are here in the gallery and welcome to you all. The debate is for you. It is often said that trust is important, and if lost, it is very, very hard to regain. In the wake of a scandalous catalogue of failures, there is little confidence in NHS Lothian's paediatric audiology service, even in the Scottish Government's supervision of the service. Let us consider what the health board and the relevant Government Minister are saying. On May 11, I asked eight formal questions to Jenny Minto, Minister for Public Health, to ascertain specific data on a range of unknowns, including the number of children diagnosed with serious hearing difficulties over the previous five years and how many children have been identified as potentially impacted by late diagnosis. The Minister replied on May 25 with specifics. As of the 16th, 725 children were on NHS Lothian's permanent childhood hearing impairment register. This is 92 more than at the time of the 21 British Academy of Audiology audit. On reviewing auditory brain cell and response testing undertaken in the previous five years, the BAA reviewed ABRs of all births back to 2017, and its second report will be made public in July 23. The Minister confirmed that 147 children have been identified for clinical review. 26 had a misdiagnosis and 31 had been recalled. I also received a letter from the Minister this week stressing that NHS Lothian had made significant progress against all actions in the BAA report and that governance and culture has improved. Paediatric audiology now has an additional senior expert, though we do not know what and who that senior expert is from the report I got. The Scottish Government will receive a progress report against the established action plan each month. An independent review of audiology across Scotland will report with recommendations in the summer. On Tuesday this week, I had the opportunity in the Health Committee to question Callum Campbell, the chief executive of NHS Lothian, to his credit. Mr Campbell made a sincere apology. The review he said was a wake-up call in Lothian, and of the recommendations made by the independent chair, Jacqueline Taylor, Mr Campbell said his health board has followed every one of them. His service has tried to contact every single family and is asking people to come forward if they think they've been missed. NHS Lothian has increased his resources of speech and language, and he feels there is now no lack of access to British Sign Language tutors for those who want it. If we are to accept without question these responses, it appears that NHS Lothian and the Government are getting to grips with this crisis. But are families, both here and elsewhere around Scotland, reassured by the words of those in the dock? We hear that children still face delays in accessing treatment or language support, and families on low incomes or those with language barriers are being missed. No family impacted by failures should be left behind. We must ensure that these failures are not happening elsewhere in Scotland to help to restore confidence and trust. A good start would be for the Minister to meet the cross-party group of MSPs for further discussions on issues in their constituencies. Regarding the monthly progress report that NHS Lothian will send to the Scottish Government, will the Minister commit to making this public because transparency, sunlight, is the best disinfectant? Can I state my thanks to Jeremy Balfour for bringing this important debate to the chamber and to everyone across-party? I think that we all agree that we need to work together to make changes here. As we know, the Pediatric Audiology Service at NHS Lothian has failed a great many people, not just children but their families too. As well as increasing the awareness of the impact of these failures on the children and their continued struggle to get the support that they need, this debate, as well as the meetings with parents and service managers, I hope might help to reassure families that MSPs are identifying steps that we can take to support the affected families and draw the attention of authorities who continue to lack the urgency required to fix the problem. We had the privilege of meeting some parents here in the Parliament and, as others have said, the families failed by Lothian Audiology Action Group are truly an inspiration to us all and a model for such campaigns in future. When you encounter determined campaigns such as this, you cannot fail to be impressed and listened, and I think that that has helped to cause us to jump into action. We wish that more had been done at the time to help those parents to approach the authorities and get some action from the authorities tasked with protecting patients and their families. I think that Fiona Hyslop's contribution was excellent in the fact that we recognise that that is the case. During the period of the scandal, the Audiology Department provided care to more than 22,000 children in order of some of the children identified that it was almost 34 per cent of cases that were moderate or significant concerns in the way that they had been treated. Yet, as we have heard, that audit did not include any children seen after 2018, so we can be fairly certain that there are many more, and we have to consider that in the way forward. The parents feel that there has been no acceptance that their original review was a sample, and that is a crucial point. It was a sample that there are children out there who may not be identified. I think that we must consider that possibility. We know from other cases that, if treatment opportunities are missed during the key development stage of a child, it can cause difficulty and rarely be corrected later in life, and Karen Adam's contribution to that helped us to understand that point that we must support the children as they are developing now. I think that it is astounding that there was not more accountability taken of that particular fact that those children had missed and the essential part of their development. Although a lot of the political focus has rightly been on NHS Lothian, we must also seriously consider the help and assistance that families need right now, because that is what will make a difference to the children that we are talking about. Families report that a number of those children still require access to BSL tutors. That is a fact. The parents are reporting that to us. In the Government's manifesto, there was a commitment to additional funds to local authorities for free BSL tuition for deaf children from the age of five, and it is important that we get some feedback on that. I have spoken to a family member who has explained to me that it is very expensive to get BSL tuition. It is not just about the individual needing to use BSL, it is about the whole family unit and not just about one person being able to get that. If we want children to develop and have the same excitement and learning as other children, then we have to have a wide access to free BSL. I am going to stop my contribution there and thank everybody for their contribution to this debate. I now call Ash Regan to be followed by Foisal Choudry, Ms Regan. I, like others, commend Jeremy Balfour for bringing this serious issue to the Chamber for debate today. I think that there have been a number of very excellent contributions made so far in the debate. We are obviously discussing failures in pediatric audiology in NHS Lothian. As we have discussed so far, the review identified 155 children who were affected seriously. I think that that point has been raised by others. This may not, because of the timeframe, have picked up everyone affected. I would also raise that as an urgent issue to the minister to look into that further and to see whether there is anyone else that has been missed. The root causes that were identified contributing to those failures were listed as a lack of scientific leadership, a lack of knowledge and reflection and inquiry and a lack of robust quality assurance processes. That led to assessments being carried out incorrectly. It is very disappointing that, at this stage, departments are being run in this way. I would like to ask the minister in her contribution, or if she is not able to advise in the chamber today, perhaps she can follow up to myself and others in writing about what progress has been made on delivering the many recommendations that the review put forward, many of which were, of course, extremely urgent. This week, I have taken the opportunity to speak to two families that have been affected in my constituency. I spoke to Stephanie, who is mother to Rory, who is 11. Despite repeated testing when he was a baby and a young toddler, he was not, unfortunately, diagnosed as profoundly deaf until he was four. He then went on to be fitted with a hearing aid and later cochlear implants. Stephanie told me that this represents five years of missed communications. Rory will obviously be starting high school in the not-too-distant future and his mother is very concerned that the developmental delay that was created by this level of misdiagnosis will not be closed by the time he goes to high school, putting him obviously at a disadvantage then, without significant additional support, which, unfortunately, he is not receiving. The second family that I spoke to affected quite a similar story. The daughter was tested repeatedly as a baby and a young toddler and was also told at age of three that she could hear perfectly well, which, of course, was incorrect. Her case was eventually picked up in the audit and she was finally diagnosed as being deaf from birth and she is now four and a half and she has been fitted with a hearing aid. Disappointingly, at the family's most recent audiology appointment, the clinical staff there seem to have no notes. They seem to not understand or be aware of the diagnosis and, unfortunately, I feel at this point that does not fill that family and maybe others with confidence that the culture that had led to the failures in the first place has been addressed and improved upon. This misdiagnosis and mismanagement has caused both the children and their families unnecessary suffering. The issues in NHS Lothian must be addressed and those that have been affected need support. Fiona Hyslop put it very well when she said that it needed to be specific, additional and ongoing. I suggest that maybe this takes the form of a full individualised plan of support for each child but also for their families. I think that Carol Muckin made an excellent point regarding that. I think that this support is essential and, to frank, it is the least that can be done to support those children and their families that have been affected. I hope that the minister will take on board what has been raised here today and work with this cross-party group of MSPs to make this progress that is so sorely needed. I advise members that, due to the number of members who wish to speak in this debate, I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I now invite Jeremy Balfour to move the motion without notice. That moved. Many thanks, Mr Balfour. The question is that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? That is agreed and I now call Fausal Tradry to be followed by Ben Macpherson. Families in Lothian placed their trust in a service that was there to assist and help them. Instead, they were failed by their service. I have read some difficult accounts of children who were eligible for a collier implant. That is a technology that would allow deaf children the ability to hear for the very first time. Due to late diagnosis, some children were too old or no longer eligible for this potential life-alternating technology. Some of these children were also diagnosed incorrectly. This was rectified so late that families have now been told that their children may not ever be able to speak. Other children will face major language and communication difficulties throughout their lives as a result of these late diagnosis. I do not need to express how difficult this must be for all of the families involved. The failing of NHS Lothian between 2009 and 2018 has meant that late diagnosis deaf children have lost out on years of potential support and guidance through the diagnosis. There now needs to be sufficient tailored support in place to help these families through this. The audit that identified the failing ended in 2018. As my colleague Jeremy Belford addressed, there still may be many children who were wrongly or late diagnosed that have not been identified. We must ensure that support is offered to them. There will also be cases of children who were not included in the audit or have not responded to their communication. These children may still be without support and sufficient measures need to be in place to ensure that support is offered to every single child affected by this issue. A one-size approach will not fit all. There must be multiagency tailored support available for those affected. Tailored support means taking each child's case individually and assessing how best to support them and their families. Of course, access to British Sign Language lesson and training should be readily available to the children and families affected. But consideration must also be given to cases where BSL is not the best solution. Some of the children affected come from families where English is not their first language. What support will be offered to these children who may struggle to communicate with families using BSL? Children with additional support needs may also struggle to learn or communicate with BSL. Additional means of support needs to be offered to families whose children have learning or communication difficulties. That is how we can continue to support the families whose lives have been permanently altered by NHS Lothian's patriotic audiology failure. I thank Jeremy Belford for bringing this important issue to the chamber. I commend Jeremy Balford for bringing this important debate to the chamber. While the motion is primarily focused on NHS Lothian audiology services, I would like to highlight the important interconnected issue of language and communications development and access to British Sign Language education, which has been brought to my attention by two constituents in the gallery today, Benedict and Angelica. They have given me permission to talk about their family situation in Parliament today. Benedict and Angelica's two-year-old son Thomas is deaf and a wonderful child that shows great creativity and resilience. Understandably, Benedict and Angelica want Thomas's educational prospects and those of other deaf children to be appropriate and available and delivered as well as possible. His parents have expressed to me that Thomas shows little progress in verbal language. However, he is progressing incredibly well and quickly with one of our key national languages, British Sign Language. Thinking ahead to when he grows up, his parents are aware that there are currently deaf schools in Falkirk, Hamilton and Aberdeen. In Edinburgh, however, there are currently no deaf schools, primary or secondary, and units within schools that teach BSL as its principal language are also not available. That all makes being a pupil learning in a national language very difficult in our capital city. Benedict and Angelica understandably believe that deaf schools are incredibly important for deaf children as the curriculum helps them to understand deafness and tailor learning to the specific needs of the children attending. The education is simply reformatted. Through my constituents, positive discussions have already been taken place on this with the City of Edinburgh Council, which we are very grateful for. I am committed along with my team to working with them and others to help to create a school environment in our capital city that guarantees that Thomas and other children like him a solid future and an equal education opportunity. I am keen to see learning potential in deaf children achieved regardless of their local authority area and improvement in terms of consistency across council areas. For example, provision in some areas includes weekly BSL instruction and communication support workers qualified at least BSL level 3. In Lothian, Benedict and Angelica have informed me that, as children learn 80 per cent of language through incidental listening, listening to adults, the 30 minutes of BSL that Thomas currently receives a week during time in school is not a reasonable comparison to his hearing counterparts. He is not currently receiving the same curriculum as his peers as he does not hear announcements or story time and these important things are part of the school experience. I appreciate that the Scottish Government leads with an inclusive ethos and that is highly commendable and something we all believe in, but we must build on that to make it a reality for all our deaf children in Scotland. I appreciate the Government remains committed to supporting all children and young people and that we have a role in ensuring that that happens in terms of lived experience. While all this is happening, I am sure that the minister will elaborate on those initiatives that the Government is undertaking. Here in Lothian, there are service gaps. My constituents have already given me and others so much insight and provided so much constructive engagement on how we can improve the matters on behalf of their families and others in the deaf community. I urge the Government and the council to focus on how we can improve the services that are available to Thomas and others. I now call on the minister, Jenny Minto, to respond on behalf of the Scottish Government up to seven minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me start by acknowledging the importance of this topic and thanking Jeremy Balfour for bringing forward his motion. My colleagues from across the chamber for their very considered contributions. A number of points have been raised in the debate, and I would be happy to respond to those in writing after the debate. As I believe the subject requires considered responses to all of them. However, I would be very happy to meet with the cross-party group of MSPs, and I would like to commend the work that they have done. I would also like to welcome the families to the chamber. I am very sorry that it is in these circumstances, but I thank you for the very important work that you are doing to raise this issue with Government, your MSPs and NHS Lothian. I thank you very much. At the outset, I would like to make it clear that the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all of our children, young people and their families get the support that they need at the right time. That is made clear through our getting it right for every child approach. Earlier today, I was at a session with officials talking about children and education and how they can work better together. I will take some of the learning that I have from this debate to my officials with regards to this situation. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the seriousness of the failings around NHS Lothian's paediatric audiology services, outlined in the British Academy of Audiology's 2021 report, which put simply the showed, as others have said, unacceptable levels of failure. As a result, a number of children and young people and their families have endured lasting impacts on their lives, and I have no doubt that those affected by the situation in NHS Lothian are very anxious and rightly angry about what has happened. As Jeremy Balfour said in his contribution, these are real issues impacting on real families. In December 2021, NHS Lothian was escalated to stage 3 of the board performance escalation framework for audiology performance and service delivery, demonstrating how seriously the Scottish Government took this situation. The step was to ensure that the necessary improvements were made to the service with a formal recovery plan being developed by the board in partnership with Government. I am pleased that work has been taken forward by NHS Lothian and progress has been made, but I am aware of some of the points that have been made and would like to explore that further. However, I encourage any family who thinks that their child may have been affected by the situation in Lothian or have any concerns with regard to audiology to contact NHS Lothian's helpline on 0800 800 880. The Scottish Government is clear that families across Scotland should have assurances that their child is getting the best possible audiology support. That is why we introduced a national independent review of audiology services in January last year, which will report on its findings soon, I believe that Jackie Baillie referenced that. It is important to reflect on previous failings and the subsequent work done to make improvements. However, that does nothing to help those children and families who have already been affected. That is why it is vital that our public services are joined up and that we ensure that children get the best support that they need. A number of my colleagues referenced the importance of health working with education to ensure that there are focused efforts to support the cross-folio work that Fiona Hislop referenced and to try and avoid the disconnect that Oliver Mundell referenced in his contribution. Our C-HEAR strategy, which is jointly endorsed by COSLA, provides a strategic framework for action for meeting the needs of people with sensory loss against the background of increasing demand, requirements for greater efficiency and effectiveness and, of course, health and social care integration. A refreshed C-HEAR strategy will be published in 2025 and in early discussions, stakeholders have identified the need to include more on early years, children, young people and transitions to adult services. We will listen to those voices, to those with lived experience, as Karen Adam eloquently put, to ensure that we progress that work properly. The Scottish Government's sensory loss and social care advisory group will support and advise officials, as will a group of Scottish Government policy officials with an interest in sensory loss. I would also like to reflect on another point that Karen Adam made with regard to peer groups and the support from third sector partners. Those are a vital element of support. The Children, Young Peoples and Family Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund has provided just over £100 million of funding to 115 organisations since 2016 to deliver support that tackles inequalities, child and family poverty, improved learning and build skills. One of the organisations in receipt of some of that funding is the National Jeff Children's Society, which received £102,900 annually to support a range of activities, but returning to public service provision in respect of education and learning, access to specific support is critical, which Ben MacPherson and Ash Regan both referenced to. From my perspective, it is very helpful to hear the direct experiences of your constituents, and I thank you for sharing them. I also thank your constituents for allowing them to be shared in the Parliament. As Jeremy Balfour said, this is where this Parliament works well, is when we have the cross-collaboration and the honesty and the experience from each of us from our own constituencies. We are committed to supporting the delivery of high-quality early learning and childcare services, which are language-rich environments that provide children with opportunities to play, learn and have social interaction. A number of people reference British Sign Language and, in supporting the provision of sign language, it is our aim to make Scotland the best place in the world for people who sign to live, work, visit and learn. We are developing our British Sign Language national plan 2023-29, due to be published in October this year. As part of that, we have identified key priorities that include support for deaf children and their families and how we can better support the BSL workforce. This will be overseen by an implementation governance group, ensuring that we deliver our commitments in a way that addresses the current needs of BSL signers across Scotland, as well as identifying any new needs that arise over the lifetime of the plan. Before concluding, I would like to briefly reflect on the impact that late diagnosis may have not only on learning but on mental health. The Scottish Government is committed to improving access to community mental health and wellbeing support through our investment in community mental health services. We are providing local authorities with £15 million per annum to fund community-based mental health support for children, young people and their families. Finally, I would like to thank again Jeremy Balfour for bringing forward this debate and, as I said before, the very thoughtful and thought-provoking contributions from my colleagues. I also want to reaffirm my early commitments around the Scottish Government's commitment to ensuring that all our children and young people have the access to the right support when they need it. I am not sure that I look forward to the correct word, but I will ensure that we have a meeting as soon as possible with the cross-party group. That concludes the debate, and I suspend this meeting until 2 pm.