 The next item of business is an urgent question, and I call Megan Gallacher. To ask the Scottish Government what support has been provided to NHS Lanarkshire in light of reports that Wyshaw hospital A&E department was at full capacity at the weekend, with patients being transferred to Monkland hospital. Firstly, it has always been part of the board's operational practice to work as a clinical network to manage demand by diverting patients between their hospitals where it is clinically safe to do so, minimising delays for patients. As you know and every member knows, the health and care system is under extreme pressure due to the pandemic. In NHS Lanarkshire, like all health boards, it is experiencing significant issues, including workforce challenges and high levels of delayed discharge. We recognise that some people are not getting the service of care, they are re-indeed. We would expect and of course I regret and apologise to anybody who suffered as a result of that. As members will know, we have invested in an additional £300 million winter package of measures to support health and care services. Over and above that, and to maximise capacity, we have also invested £10 million into specialist programmes that aim to provide alternatives to admission and that our processes are right to ensure timely discharge. On top of that, the member will probably be aware that NHS Lanarkshire has been assigned 64 military medics to support the three acute setting sites. That task has recently been extended from 11 November until 17 December, which is welcomed by me and indeed the board. Me and my senior officials have been meeting regularly with the executive team at NHS Lanarkshire to agree immediate actions that will support improvements and minimise delay for patients. I spoke to the chief executive of NHS Lanarkshire yesterday. Cabinet secretary, some patients who presented themselves at wish or general at the weekend were diverted to Munklands hospital A&E department to receive treatment as there was a shortage of beds and high demand. The journey time between those two hospitals is 24 minutes. The cabinet secretary was aware of the concerns surrounding Masha general and other NHS Lanarkshire hospitals after they recently announced code black. So can I ask the cabinet secretary why no immediate intervention was made to prevent patients having to be diverted to another hospital nearly 10 miles away? I disagree with the characterisation that no action was taken. I will come to that in a second, but it should be said that any patient that is diverted to another hospital is done on the basis where a clinician has decided that it is safe to do so. The idea that we have not taken action, I am afraid, is incorrect. I can write to the member in quite a lot of detail on the action that we have taken on the code black status. Of course, we do not want to see NHS Lanarkshire at the highest level of escalation. That is why we have invested £300 million in our winter package. I have met NHS Lanarkshire regularly. The key to that is to try to ensure that we can clinically discharge where it is safe to do so as many people out of the acute sites and to the three hospital sites that the member knows about, into care as best and as quickly as we possibly can. I am more than happy to write to Megan Gallacher in a great amount of detail about the additional investment that has gone into NHS Lanarkshire. My thanks to all of the staff of NHS and social care staff at NHS Lanarkshire who are working so hard under very extreme pressure. Megan Gallacher. The target of 95 per cent of patients being seen within four hours at A&E departments across all NHS localities. However, recent figures for NHS Lanarkshire show that only 61.8 per cent of patients are being seen within the time frame. The Scottish Government has failed to get a grip of this crisis and NHS Lanarkshire patients are paying the price. Therefore, will the cabinet secretary apologise to NHS staff and patients across the NHS Lanarkshire locality? Will he commit to getting a grip of this crisis? I thank our NHS staff for something that Megan Gallacher has not been able to do thus far for their incredible work in the midst of this global pandemic. She talks about the 95 per cent target. I acknowledge that we have not met that target. If she does not shout from a sedentary position and listens, she might get the answer to why that is the case. We are in the midst of a global pandemic, Ms Gallacher. Of course, we are not at the place that we want to be. I can hear someone shouting from a sedentary position. It would do well for the Conservatives and Mr Kerr to listen to the answer, because it is incredibly important that we have seen two weeks of improvement. NHS performance is not where I want it to be, but the fact of the matter is that, Ms Gallacher and the Conservative Party who are shouting from a sedentary position, we are still the best-performing A&E department in the entire United Kingdom. I do not say that, and again they would do well to listen. It is not because we are abdicating our responsibility, our responsibility is over the Scottish NHS, but that surely demonstrates to members that this is a problem that health services across the UK are facing. My job is to ensure that the NHS boards, including NHS Lanarkshire and our staff, get the funding that is necessary to make the improvements. We have seen improvements over the past two weeks, which have not been acknowledged by Ms Gallacher. Of course, to ensure that staff wellbeing is taken care of. That is why I want to once again reiterate my thanks to our NHS and social care staff who are working incredibly hard in the midst of this pandemic. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the unprecedented pressure on our NHS is attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic and that that emphasises the importance of using every tool at our disposal to increase vaccine uptake and reduce case numbers? Does he also agree that the Conservatives' opposition to on-going public health measures, including Ms Gallacher's previous calls to aligning with England, sits at odds with their concern for the health service? Yes, I agree, and I can hear and can still hear the Conservative members shouting from a sedentary position when, of course, Ms Adamson is absolutely correct. She is entirely correct that, of course, one of the pressures that we face—not all of the pressures are attributed to Covid, but anybody who lives in the real world would understand that the pandemic has caused the biggest shock to our NHS in its 73-year existence. The fact that we have well over 750 patients with Covid in our hospitals that are taking up beds adds to that pressure. Now, controlling transmission of Covid, controlling infection, is clearly going to help to alleviate some of that pressure as we go into the very depths of winter. Of course, we saw this afternoon when the First Minister was making her statement that the Conservatives' only contribution to this debate is to oppose every sensible measure that this Government looks to bring forward to control Covid, which would, of course, help to alleviate that pressure on NHS boards, including NHS Lanarkshire. This is an extremely serious situation, and I want to thank our NHS staff. NHS Lanarkshire moved to code black on 22 October, and that resulted in some cancer operations being cancelled for patients who were already experiencing unacceptably long delays. Some three weeks on since that code black was declared, those reports from the Scottish A&E Department clearly demonstrate that the Scottish Government has not dealt with the situation. When the cabinet secretary expects all elective surgeries, especially cancer procedures, to recommence? Just remind Paul O'Kane that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. I can again hear him shouting from a sedentary position, but we are still in the midst of that global pandemic. What I would say to him is that it is impossible for any Government across the UK to set a target date of when all electives will be back on track. That is why we published the NHS recovery plan to increase capacity by 10 per cent. That is backed by £1 billion investment over the course of the parliamentary term. However, I would say to the member that it is not my decision, of course, to pause elective care. That is a decision that is taken by clinicians, quite rightly so. It is a decision that is taken by NHS health boards at their local health board area. I know from speaking to NHS Lanarkshire as I do every single week and as my officials do on a daily basis that decisions are not taken lightly. Once NHS Lanarkshire went into the highest level of escalation, I announced a number of additional measures and proposals with increased funding. I am happy to write to the member with details of what NHS Lanarkshire's funding went directly to NHS Lanarkshire in that regard. I have been contacted by a constituent whose twin babies were born prematurely on 21 October at University Hospital Wishaw. I would like to send our congratulations. They were then transferred to the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy as a special care baby unit at Wishaw was closed due to staff shortages and a lack of available cops. It has now been three weeks since my constituent and his partner are both living out of suit cases sleeping in the neonatal unit on a fold-down bed. Will the cabinet secretary look into this matter and ascertain whether alternative arrangements can be made to get them closer to home if not back in Wishaw? Yes, of course, I will if Gillian Mackay can furnish me with the details. Again, the constituent's story that Ms Mackay rightly articulates here in this chamber is just again symptomatic of the pressures that we are facing at the moment in NHS Lanarkshire. It is facing those pressures even more acute than other health boards right across the country. We will continue to not just invest, but I will leave no stone unturned. That is why, of course, we were happy to facilitate that Mackay requested a request in military for further assistance for NHS Lanarkshire. If Ms Mackay does furnish me with the details, I will certainly raise that with the board and see what more can be done for the family involved. I really do think that the cabinet secretary has been incredibly patronising towards my colleague Megan Gallacher. She has asked very reasonable questions and what she has gotten back is snippets from a ministerial briefing and sound bites about investment. She is actually asking the cabinet secretary about what he and his Government have done to pre-empt the crisis that was declared in NHS Lanarkshire. What he has given us back is politics. Can he tell us? Can he give us a sample of the extensive and exhaustive list of things that he has done that he could not tell us one thing of a few minutes ago? That was barely worth listening to, so this is a serious issue. This is a serious issue that deserves far more than Stephen Kerr's bluff and Stephen Kerr's bluster in terms of the action that we have taken. Can I remind all members who will be well versed in the code of conduct that we have a duty to treat one another with courtesy and respect at all times? We have invested £20 million additional funding into the Scottish Ambulance Service. In fact, £20 million before the announcement that I made in September is taking the additional resource for the Scottish Ambulance Service to more than £240 million, a £300 million winter package, which I am happy to give him details of. The First Minister announced £482 million recently in terms of helping with Covid pressures. I announced in July an additional £12 million. Last week I announced an additional £10 million. A week before that, I announced an additional £10 million as well. If the member wants me to keep going, I can tell him a number of actions. He says practical things. He does not think that money or investment is practical, but that investment is helping our NHS boards, including NHS Lanarkshire. Constituents in Lanarkshire have told me that they are willing to travel to other health boards. When I asked the board about this on Friday, I was told apart from the Golden Jubilee for a small number of cases that there is no capacity in other health boards. Since then, I have been told that other health boards have approached Lanarkshire, which is in code black, asking Lanarkshire for help. Are there any other health boards close to code black and when can we expect mutual aid to become available? Is there any spare capacity at all in our health system? There is no other health board at the moment that is going to raise its escalation level to the highest level of escalation black, which NHS Lanarkshire is on. Of course, that is a situation that is reviewed daily and weekly. In fact, it is reviewed hourly, which I suspect by health boards, given the extreme pressures that they are under. In terms of mutual aid, it is not uncommon for health boards to reach out to other health boards for mutual aid. I know that a number of health boards have done that, depending on the different services. I was talking to NHS Tayside yesterday who I understand are speaking to other health boards about potential mutual aid for some of their breast cancer services. In terms of elective surgery, if there is at all any data capacity and there are teams that can be brought together from different health boards, then we are looking extensively to see how we can maximise that opportunity. However, the NHS Golden Jubilee is helping health boards right across the country, including NHS Lanarkshire, with some elective surgeries. That concludes the urgent question. The next item of business is a committee announcement. I call Siobhan Brown, convener of the Covid-19 recovery committee, to make an announcement on their upcoming debate, Covid-19.