 Yn ystafell yma, mae ymwneud yn ymwneud yma i Ffwg Bwysig 1.0.622, oedd yma'r Gwlad Adam yma yma i'r Bwysig 1.0. Mae'n cyd-dweud ar gyfer y dyfodol gyda'r Cyflawn Pwylliant Cymysgol, yng Nghymru. Mae'n cyd-dweud i fynd gwaith efo'i ddau'r cyflawn, cael byddai'r cyd-dweudus i'r cyflawn. I invite the minister to move the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I've been waiting anticipation for 50 minutes for this, but moved. Thank you very much indeed. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 106.2 be agreed. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. The next item of business is a stage 3 proceedings of the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill in dealing with amendments members should have. The Bill is amended at stage 2. That's SP Bill 19A. The marshaled list and the groupings of amendments. The division bell will sound and proceedings will be suspended for around five minutes for the first division of the stage 3. The period of voting for the first division will be 45 seconds thereafter. I'll allow a voting period of one minute for the first division after a debate. Members who wish to speak in the debate on any group of amendments should press the request to speak buttons or enter RTS in the chat function if they're joining us online as soon as possible after the group is called. Members should now refer to the marshal list of amendments. I'll find it very difficult to hear you from up here. I don't know if there's anything that can be done. I could probably speak louder, Mr Dunbar. That's what I'll endeavour to do. We move to group 1. I call amendment 9, in the name of Jackie Baillie, grouped with amendments, as shown in the groupings. Jackie Baillie, to move amendment 9 and speak to all other amendments in the group. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I wish to move amendment 9 and will speak to all other amendments in this group. Six amendments are all related and taken together will strengthen the rights of bereaved families within the bill. Those amendments seek to ensure that patients who have been seriously injured or harmed in a healthcare setting are never again left struggling to get answers and justice. The suite of amendments and the ones that follow in group 3 are the basis for putting Millie's law into effect. Taken together, the amendments will deliver a duty to advocate for those affected by a major incident in a healthcare setting, a patient safety charter for the benefit of patients in their families that will come on to, a duty to ensure that patients affected by a major incident are aware of the commissioner's role, a duty to provide patients affected with information and details that will support them, and a duty to provide information to whistleblowers on how to disclose information relating to a major incident. I remind members why this is just so important. Millie Mayne was 10 years old and in remission from leukemia when she tragically lost her life to an infection that was believed to have been caused by the water supply in the Queen Elizabeth University hospital. Her mum, Kimberley, has had to battle to get answers compounding her pain at what was an unimaginably difficult time. She is not the only family member who has had to fight alone for answers in a situation like this. Louise Lawrence, a grieving widow who lost her husband in the Queen Elizabeth hospital infection scandal and who Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board chose to pay a private company to spy on, is still waiting for a meeting with the health board that was promised by the former First Minister. But both Louise and Kimberley are still awaiting the outcome of the Queen Elizabeth public enquiring. For those of us with even longer memories, I also want to mention the SEDIF scandal that happened at the Vale of Leven hospital. These are illustrations of where having a patient safety commissioner with robust powers would have been so important. So let me address the amendments in turn. Amendment 9 would add to the duties of the patient safety commissioner for Scotland, meaning that they would be required to advocate for those affected by a major incident, while amendment 20 defines the term major incident itself. Amendment 17 would introduce a new section to the bill relating to the commissioner's role once they are made aware of a major incident. This would include patients affected by major incidents in the families of patients who died as a result of them, providing relevant information including sources of support, information on accessing legal advice and representation, details of any investigations or inquiries relating to the incident, and of course advice to whistleblowers. Significantly, the amendment would also require the commissioner to consider initiating a formal investigation into an incident within one year of becoming aware of it. My amendments don't seek to hinder the work of the commissioner, and indeed amendment 17 requires the commissioner to consider initiating a formal investigation, but it does not require them to then carry out that investigation. We are trying to be proportionate here. Amendment 21 defines the term family member for the purpose of identifying who should be contacted by the commissioner in the event of a major incident. Under amendment 18, where the commissioner completes a formal investigation, it would be required to provide a copy of their report into the incident to both the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The amendment also confirms that the report could be used in legal proceedings. Under the bill as it stands, the patient safety commissioner does not have the power to make redress or assist those seeking redress or a pine on actions that should be taken in relation to individuals. However, amendment 10 would ensure that major incidents are exempt from that element of the bill. The amendments would empower the patient safety commissioner to advocate for people that have been failed by the healthcare system. They would ensure that those who are affected by such incidents are supported in knowing their rights and getting the appropriate help. By empowering the role of the commissioner, we can begin to reset the balance between families and powerful public bodies. I move amendment 9 in my name. I rise to support Jackie Baillie's amendments in this group. The Queen Elizabeth University hospital scandal has haunted families for years, families who are desperately seeking answers from a health board that has pulled down the shutters and said nothing to see here. We saw the same thing happen in NHS Clyde, in the Sam Eljamel case, whose medical negligence has had devastating consequences for his patients. Patients and their families should not have to go up against a large public body to find out the truth, and in no way is that a fair fight. The Scottish Government announced the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry in 2019 on the QEUH campus and a public inquiry earlier this month on Eljamel. These inquiries are welcome but they can take years and leave families in limbo. Against this background it makes sense for the patient safety commissioner to advocate for those affected by a major incident in a healthcare setting where they believe it is appropriate to do so. These amendments are however a significant expansion of the patient safety commissioner's remit, with implications for resourcing. If they are successful today and I hope they will be after the SNP and Greens rejected them at stage 2, the commissioner will need to be able to deliver on them. I hope the minister and Jackie Baillie will be able to address this point. I would like to begin by acknowledging the voices of patients who have been harmed while in the care of the NHS or any other healthcare provider and those of their families and loved ones. I can only begin to imagine the grief of those families who have been bereaved and my heart goes out to them for the devastating loss they have suffered. Families have spoken clearly and powerfully about how the healthcare system has let them down and in Jackie Baillie's words they have had to battle. The best thing any of us can do now, in fact the only thing we can do is to take every step possible to make sure that other families don't suffer the same thing in the future. I would like to record my thanks to Jackie Baillie for her continued support and advocacy for these patients and their families and for working with us towards our common aim of making this bill and the patient safety commissioner as strong as possible. None of us will ever forget in these discussions that we all want to make healthcare safer. That has been at the forefront of my mind since I started working on the bill and I know that the same is true of all of us in this chamber. As I noted at stage 2, the patient safety commissioner's role is to amplify the voice of patients and to drive improvements in safety however they see fit. The commissioner will have powers to investigate any healthcare safety issue and listening to patients and their families is a fundamental element of their role. I know from my discussions with her that Jackie Baillie's amendments seek to strengthen the commissioner even further to ensure that the voices of those harmed in major healthcare incidents and families who have lost loved or heard. The patient safety commissioner will undoubtedly wish to hear the voices of bereaved families as well as affected patients when they wish to raise an issue relating to patient safety that stems from the sort of incident that Jackie Baillie describes. That is something that is already provided for in the bill. Indeed, as a Government, our key consideration when developing the bill has been to give the patient safety commissioner as much independence as possible so that they have the most freedom possible to examine any healthcare issue that affects patients and their families. The most important thing that we can do now is to do our best to ensure that no families see loved ones harmed while in the care of the healthcare system. That is why it is so important that this bill improves patient safety by encouraging openness, learning and co-operation within the healthcare system so that when things go wrong, lessons are learned and families do not go through the same things again. While I understand the intent behind amendment 10, I believe that it is likely to detract from that vital function that I have just described to encourage openness, ensure lessons are learned and prevent the same harms happening again. Adding to the commissioner's role a function of providing or assisting with redress for patients and bereaved families and giving their opinions on the actions that others should take in light of past incidents, risks putting the commissioner into an adversarial role and may encourage healthcare providers to believe that they have to be defensive as opposed to open in their dealings with the commissioner. I believe that focusing the commissioner on openness and learning for past incidents will be the best way of ensuring that when they look into any healthcare safety issues connected to a major incident where many patients are harmed, lessons are learned and those harms are not repeated. Similarly, amendment 21 provides an extensive list of definitions of what constitutes family, which I know Jackie Baillie has drafted within sole intention of ensuring that no family member is excluded from being able to speak to the commissioner or receive support. However, family means different things to different people and the family connections that are important to one person will not necessarily be the same as to the next. I also believe that some of the language in this amendment on whole blood and half blood relationships is outdated. I believe that it is more effective not to tie the commissioner up with lengthy definitions of who they should or should not consider in the context of their work. That is a matter for the commissioner's own discretion. We all share the desire for the patient safety commissioner to be able to look into healthcare safety issues arriving from major incidents where multiple patients are harmed. I've considered very carefully how best to achieve this and my view remains that it is more effective to allow the commissioner to be guided by patients on the issues they look into and the actions they take. I do not wish to inadvertently tie the commissioner's hands in respect of the sort of circumstances that they can look into and I worry that this group of amendments by adding very specific steps for the commissioner to take in relation to certain group of incidents would unintentionally undermine the commissioner's vital ability to set their own agenda and to look into the issues of most concerned to patients. It remains the case that following a major incident relating to healthcare safety, the commissioner would have an important role in hearing from those affected and considering whether a systemic problem has caused it. I must emphasise again, as this point is very important, that there is nothing in the powers and functions already in the bill preventing the commissioner from doing this. I therefore urge members not to support these amendments. Thank you minister. I now call on Jackie Baillie to wind up and press a withdrawal amendment 9. Well there you go, Presiding Officer. I listened very carefully to the minister's response. There is much on which we agree but the warm words are not a substitute for action and it's one thing to acknowledge the voices of families but not to listen to them when they describe this as the action required to give the commissioner the powers that the families say are necessary. So I have to say that I am genuinely disappointed. Can I thank Tess White and the Conservatives for their support? Can I point out to the minister that the First Minister himself said he supported Millie's law but his government doesn't appear to do so? How can he change his mind so quickly or is it the case that he is not actually in control of this legislation? Can I also say that I spent a considerable amount of time engaging with the minister and her officials, time that I thought was well spent? Unfortunately that doesn't appear to have been the case and I have listened to her very carefully and I will withdraw amendment 21 because the minister has confirmed on the record that the widest definition of family will be considered and I'm content with that. Let me say to her if she thinks that this will make healthcare providers more defensive than they already are then I am quite astonished because you only need to look at the evidence, at the attitude of healthcare providers, of healthcare managers at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital, at Tayside in relation to LGML to understand that healthcare providers are defensive already and we need to change the balance. We need to get things back to the patient being at the centre of everything we do. Giving effect to Millie's law should be something that this Parliament should do and in closing let me reflect on Millie's mum, Kimberley-Dyraeck's own words. Right now the system is stacked against those who have questions about what happened to their loved ones and that can't be right. We are looking to our Parliament to put measures in place so that nobody has to go through what we went through ever again. I hope that members will reflect on her words and reject the minister's approach and support these amendments. Thank you, Miss Bailey. The question is that amendment 9 be agreed, are we all agreed? Yes. Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division as this is the first division of stage 3. I'm going to suspend for around five minutes to allow members to get on to the digital voting platform.