 Rhaid i'w gwylltyn am ydw i'r marwyl fod yn cymryddiol, Ac i wnaedd yn ddiw i gael i'ch ceisio i gywmwyng y Cymru gwysig 2019? Diolch yn y tyn nhw'r gwaith fyddwch i gael i'ch gwellio fod yn cymunedol lael roi ffordd y pethau, arweinyddof yn 1711 i gael i officersiwn ein hoffi ar ystod Dynod Aelodau Andrew. Efallai'r pethau sefydlu i ffyrdd digwyddrfaen o'r prif o gyflwyngsgol eich cwyl a ddiflu i gael gwaith i gael gweithio'r materialau a'r ddiflu i gael gweithio'r ddiflu i gael'r ddiflu i gael gweithio'r ddiflu i gael gweithio'r ddiflu i gael gweithio'r ddiflu. Mr Carlson is the chief executive of St Andrews First Aid, and he's going to give evidence to the committee this morning alongside his colleague Francis Stewart. Also in the panel we have Colin Peebles, who is a teacher at Merron's Primary School in Glasgow. I'm also absolutely delighted to welcome some young people who'll be giving evidence this morning. We've already experienced these young pupils demonstrating their skills and probably the best act that we've had in a long time, so thank you very much indeed. We did that informally before the meeting, so I want to welcome Rebecca Russell, who's a student at Glasgow City College, and Ellie Meek and Millie Robinson, who are pupils at Parkhead Primary School in West Caledon. I want to welcome you very much today to get the opportunity to talk about why you think that the petition is so important. Welcome to you all, and I invite Mr Carlson to provide a brief opening statement of up to no more than five minutes, after which we'll move to questions from the committee. Good morning, convener. It's a great pleasure to be here on behalf of St Andrews First Aid, one of Scotland's oldest charities and the only dedicated first aid charity in Scotland. We're asking this morning the committee to urge the Scottish Government to do more to promote basic first aid as part of the curriculum in all Scottish primary schools. The curriculum for excellence does, of course, provide scope for this. For example, one of the outcomes is that children should know when to be able to demonstrate how to keep themselves and others safe and how to respond in an emergency. However, as things stand, it's very much down to every individual local authority whether or not these essential skills are taught to pupils. In practice, first aid learning depends heavily on the knowledge and enthusiasm of individual teachers such as Mr Peebles. Scotland's information services division recently highlighted the stark fact that those living in the most deprived areas of the country have a death rate from heart disease six times higher than their wealthier neighbours, a 36 per cent more likely to die from a stroke. Youngsters living in these areas are more likely to encounter violence or health issues arising from the misuse of drugs and alcohol. Yet children in these areas are far less likely to learn first aid in their schools or through membership of youth organisations such as the Cubs and Brownies. We believe that if children and young adults are equipped with these skills at an early age, they will become lifelong advocates of first aid and make a huge difference within their families and their local community. Our plans are calling for the provision of high quality and age-appropriate teaching materials, as well as training and support to enable teachers to deliver first aid knowledge to their pupils in short-focused workshops integrated into the curriculum in the way that they see fit. We know that children can benefit, as our young people have demonstrated this morning, from an understanding of what to do when someone is choking, how to put them in the recovery position and perform CPR, some basic bandaging for wounds and even how to recognise and help when one of their classmates is anxious or distressed, so-called mental health first aid. I want to note in passing that we do, of course, actively support the campaign by the British Heart Foundation and the Scottish Government to promote the teaching of CPR, but vital though that is, it is only one of the set of basic first aid skills. This is our modest measure, financially speaking, with significant societal benefits. We fully recognise the pressures of time and resources already facing our schools and have designed this approach to be a cost effective value for money solution. We are proposing to develop high quality teaching tools to make the job easier for people like Colin. There are, of course, many of these scattered around the internet—we can all find them—but nothing very comprehensive, nothing tailored to the curriculum for excellence and, indeed, some of them probably not really appropriate for primary schools. Developing materials in conjunction with Scottish teachers themselves, we believe, would be beneficial. Again, we propose to train one teacher in each school to cascade that learning down through their schools and through the local authority area. We calculate that implementing a first aid training programme in schools on these lines would not cost much more than £500 million in the first year, falling thereafter, the equivalent of around £270 per primary school. In the longer term, if first aid education were to be included in initial teacher training, this would also reduce the CPD burden on schools and take the cost down further. The benefits to society outweigh such a modest investment by increasing, first of all, the number of trained bystanders ready to help in an emergency. Even at an early age, children are receptive to first aid training and keen to share their knowledge with family and friends. When the deans introduced a similar programme in the early 2000s, in a 10-year period, they increased the number of bystander interventions from around 20 per cent of emergency situations to over 70 per cent, largely because kids were going home and telling mum, dad, uncles, cousins and the rest and showing them what to do. Teaching first aid in schools is very inclusive, appropriate for all levels of development, all races, colours and creeds. Researchers have noted that first aid training contributes to increased confidence and self-esteem in young people. The people that we have here this morning are the perfect ones to speak to that. As a skill for life, first aid training also can help young people to be more risk averse, particularly the consequences of binge drinking and drug use. Specific areas were shown that teenagers who understand the risks involved are less likely to get involved themselves and are also able to help their friends when they get into trouble. Simply knowing how to put somebody into the recovery position, for example, can be enough to save a life in these situations. Finally, the committee may be aware that the Westminster Government announced in July 2018 that first aid training would form part of compulsory health education in all English schools from 2020 onwards, in the belief that this will support academic attainment and school performance and that disadvantaged pupils would see the most benefit. In this instance, we do believe that Scotland could benefit from following suit. We will start off with some questions, but we are probably particularly keen to hear about the experiences of young people who are involved and, obviously, Francis is involved in a lot of training and our primary teacher. I will ask a couple of questions to my colleagues to ask some questions, but please feel free to direct the questions to the person on the panel. You might be most able to answer. You might have highlighted that already in what you said, but you can confirm why you would start with primary, as opposed to other parts of the education system, and why specifically would you start with schools in areas of high deprivation? Could I perhaps ask my colleagues who have been teaching to contribute to this point? In regard to starting it further down in primary school, younger children are more malleable, and they are more receptive to new things that they are keen to learn. Their proverbial sponges are soaking up knowledge. I think that starting it earlier rather than later was a fantastic idea. As Stuart has already said, the bystander effect is reduced. If people just have a little bit of knowledge, then, as Stuart has already said again about the recovery position, knowing little things that they will take further on and that they can build on those skills as they go through. For example, in our school, we start them in nursery school, in primary one with very, very basic things, things like knowing about the emergency services, recognising risk, and that progresses through the school to CPR and the recovery position by the time they get to the senior school. I can't talk for my secondary colleagues, but that's certainly why I would advocate for earlier. In primary schools, would you regard yourself as unusual in having such a thought-through programme right from the early stages? Would we regard ourselves as unusual again? I can't speak for other schools. I know that, first, I think that what Stuart is recommending is two hours per year. We do 12 hours per year at the moment. We had a working party last year that we decided we wanted to focus on live skills. When you're teaching things like be it first aid, be it cooking skills, be it design and technology, you've got very mixed ability classes. It's very much a level playing field. For children who come from more deprived areas as well, as has already been mentioned, they're probably more likely to experience something that may well be a medical emergency, so having that knowledge earlier is a great thing. Thank you. Brian Whittle. Thank you, convener. Good morning, because you're welcome here, because as you said, particularly to Millie and Ellie, I think that you were fantastic this morning. You've made an old man to feel much better, and I think that everybody should have a Millie and an Ellie close by. I certainly would like one. We are aware, of course, that these first aid skills are taught in a uniform section. The beavers are cubs, guides or scouts or whatever, which means that children as young as six years old in the beaver section acquire them as live skills. That young age is still something that you think should be mirrored in schools. The area has a beaver or a cubs or a scout or whatever it might be, so most children in every area will go to school and not every child or child will go to one of those clubs, so you can do a catch-all in a school as opposed to maybe a quarter, a fifth, whatever the numbers might be in clubs. I was just going to say that the merits of having a focused approach in all schools is that everyone will learn. There are absolutely some outstanding examples in Scottish schools where first aid is taught. We would like everybody to have that opportunity. Rebecca is one of our most active recruiters of young people. Perhaps she could ask her to comment. My name is Rebecca. I am with Stanley Company with St Andrews. We started off the year last year in September with only two cadets that came back over the summer. I and my friend Cara took it upon ourselves to go round our local primary and high schools. That was schools such as Hillington, Rosshall, and we had ties in with them because we used to go there. We went round all those schools, done a wee demonstration, spoke a bit about what it is like to be a cadet, and we had an opening day for them. We had 19 cadets come out of that, which we were really proud of and really happy. We did go back very occasionally to go to Rosshall and spoke to the kids that we went and done the talks to. They were really enthusiastic about the first aid, and they were saying how they would love it to be taught, as they want to learn more. We get more out of that than just knowing what we know and how we are putting it on to the kids. We have the cadets. The youngest is nine, the oldest is 16, and they come every single week, and they absolutely love it. I can still remember, as far back as primary school, when we did some CPR, but I think that it was primary 6 or primary 7. Is your suggestion that we start as soon as they come in, or is it something that comes in later on in the primary school? Where do you think that the point is? I think that all materials that we would produce would be age-appropriate, but it is possible for children to be introduced to the concepts right from primary 1 and primary 2 onwards, even if it is something as simple as knowing how to get help in an emergency if mummy or daddy has collapsed. Situations that have arisen and where kids who have been aware of basic first aid have successfully been able to call for help as young as 4 or 5. I know that there have been some primary schools in Edinburgh where they have introduced CPR as young as 5 or 6. At that age, children are not going to have the physical strength to do it, but they are being introduced to the concept. The introduction of those concepts has demonstrated that it lasts longer if you start younger. Of course, a 5-year-old will probably not be able to do effective CPR, however, they are famo-likely to refresh those skills when they go on to secondary school and in later life. We would propose to have age-appropriate teaching available for classes right the way through the school. First aid, if it becomes normal and inverted commons at an early age, then it stays normal. It does not become something that someone has collapsed over the—or pretend—I did not see that, which, unfortunately, is the case in some cases. If you have started to get that knowledge and that confidence in it at an earlier age, and as Stewart said, CPR by a 5-year-old might not be effective, but if they are aware of the motion and what that might be and as they become bigger and stronger and are able to continue those skills on, then to me that is a great thing. I want to ask Millie and Ellie, because I am trying to get you back for hurting me so much. I want to ask Millie and Ellie, do you feel confident enough to teach your classmates those skills? You tried to teach me those skills and I was terrible, but do you feel confident enough that you could take the skills that you know and then teach them to your classmates? I had done a three-minute talk in my class before and I got my youth leader to bring in the dummy and I had done a demonstration of it and I told them why I do first aid, so I taught my class it. How did your classmates react to that? I think they learned something from it. If you were nodding when we were talking about the training, what if you want to say something about the training that you do? If I just touch on something that the guys have already said. I have worked in first aid for many years now, from very young right across to workplace courses as well. One of the biggest barriers to anybody helping out if someone takes out on the street is fear. People don't know what to do, they're frightened to do something wrong. See, the younger a child is and the more you get them used to it, even if it is, they see a dummy on the floor and they therefore know how to touch it, know what that feels like, know what the depth is. These kind of things mean that they don't have that fear anymore. I've got a son who's just about to be two. Now he cannae do CPR, I'm not saying that, right? However, he knows what a dummy looks like. See, when he gets older he's not going to be frightened to do that then, because he already has an awareness of what mum does, he already has an awareness of how to help somebody, because he's seen me doing that. If we can get rid of the fear early on, that means it's far easier as they get older when they're going through things. If you get them early on and you say to them, right, well, if you see someone lying on the floor all you need to do is call for help, you get them to colour in an ambulance and it's got 999 wrote on it, they're not frightened to do that as they get older and then it becomes like building blocks, you then just have to keep reintroducing things, you don't need to start from scratch. Again, as I say, when I'm out training, I've trained primary ones, so it is proper training, it's not that you're just going in and you're just talking to them, you're taking them through things, you're showing them that they can do such massive things, even though they are so small, they are people who they can be shaped into this thing. We want to make sure that nobody is frightened again over and asking if somebody needs help. They don't need to know everything, they don't even need to remember all of the training, they just need to know that they can go over and they can do something, and doing no first aid is much worse than getting in and having a shot, so you need to go in, you need to try, you need to be able to have that lack of not being terrified to do something and the younger someone is, the better chance you've got to shape them to be able to be first aiders is the grow bigger. I wonder if Rebecca wants to say something about her experience, but one of the things that struck the committee was that this is a skill that literally saves lives, which is just an amazing skill to have and an amazingly important skill for people to have, and I know that you spoke earlier and informed me about things that you've been involved in, and I wonder if you wanted to share that with the committee. Yes, so last year I was standing, I just came out of a gig in the town on Jamaica Street, and there was a young girl, just a year or so younger than me, who was unconscious on the ground, so her friends informed me that she had a fit and she was going in and out of consciousness, so my first instinct was to go in, put her in a cup position, keep her warm because it was damp, it would be raining, and to keep her calm and to keep her talking to somebody, whether that's her friend or to me, just so she can keep her awareness of what's going on around her. We phoned an ambulance as well, and the girl was fine. We actually met up a couple of weeks ago, and she was very grateful by just someone helping her, whether that was somebody out in the public or one of her friends. She was just grateful that she knew somebody was there looking after her. A couple of months back, I was on my way to my cadet class, and I just came out of college, and I was walking to get the bus, and there was an older man lying on the ground that fell on to the road. There were people around, and the first thing we'd done was put him in a cup position and kept him talking as his wife was there, so the wife was really helpful. She knew what was going on. She kept speaking to him, making sure that he was okay. We waited for the ambulance and kept him in a cup position to keep him stable and to keep him comfy as well, and he made a good recovery as well. I think that young age you could be frightened, it's something new to you, seeing someone just lying on the ground. For me, if I wasn't used to first aid, I would still be what's happened. I would be a bit unsteady going towards them, but getting kids at a young age could save someone's life as well. They won't be scared to go up to someone if they know what to do, even if that is just a phone, or get someone older to help. If they know who we seek, it means that we know that person will be safe. What strikes me about that is that your confidence gave other people confidence around about you, and you're saying that young people might feel unconfident. I wouldn't qualify as a young person for a very long time, and I would still be thinking about that uncertainty lack of confidence that that's having someone who knows what they're doing can make a huge difference. Can I ask Angus to come in? Okay, thanks, convener. This is a great evidence session so far. It's so good to hear some prime examples of how it's been going so far. I'd like to place on record an issue that I have in my local authority, and I'd like to name and shame my local authority, Falkirk Council, who are only one of three local authorities who haven't signed up yet to the British Heart Foundation scheme of CPR training and secondary skills, despite my cajoling since last August. I clearly welcome this initiative and this petition. We can clearly see the benefits of it being introduced at primary level, and clearly if it's introduced at primary level, we're not going to have the issue at secondary level. I was wondering if you could maybe expand on, Mr Callison, the initial cost that you were talking about in the first year of half a million pounds for training teachers, one teacher in each school. There's clearly an issue to access to training and materials, so would you envisage that half a million covering the materials? We are, of course, conscious of our austerity-driven times and that local authorities don't have money through a round, and schools are already very busy. The cost would cover the preparation of materials that teachers themselves will be able to draw down and take off the shelf without too much preparation time. It would be age-appropriate and designed to be user-friendly, and to do that we would absolutely wish to work with teachers themselves, because we are not educationalists, we're first-aiders, so I would absolutely see this being a collaborative approach. We've written recently, for example, to the EIS asking for their support, and I would certainly want them to be involved. It would cover the staff costs, whether it was ourselves or somebody else, of providing training for teachers from a particular local authority on the basis that those skills can be cascaded down through other teachers, so schools don't need to send a whole lot of staff. We don't need to have an endless number of training courses. Teachers can pick this up and share it with their colleagues, and my colleague Francis might want to add to that. Then you have the cost of the equipment, some of which you've seen, the mannequins don't last forever, but they do have a reasonable lifetime if looked after, so they'll last for a number of years. The initial cost is higher because of the capital investment in equipment, then afterwards you have the cost of keeping the things clean and sterile and so forth. Really, unless Francis is going to correct me, I think that is pretty much it, that is what this proposal involves. As I say, a modest measure which can, financially speaking, produce significant benefits, but Francis, you've actually done some of the peer training and can maybe add to that answer. As Stuart says, we're very conscious that the school, well, everywhere is under intense financial pressure already, and obviously the schools as well are under a lot of pressure. We already meet their targets. We certainly don't want to introduce something that is going to be more difficult for them to then carry it through. We want to work together. We want to make it that. As those guys have already said, our guys are so lucky, our kids are lucky, they've came to the cadets. We've got the brownies and stuff like that. We want to make it that it's not sporadic. We want to make it that it's inclusive and every child is getting the chance to this very basic training. We then want to back that up with a proposal that's going to make sure that the schools are able to do it without being under intense financial or other pressure. When we costied this up, we costied it up to have the downloadable resources. Even if we were to start small, it would be downloadable resources. As it would grow, we would have an online portal that would then have the ability to chat back and forward as well. Everything that would be able to... If they... I've been a trainer for years teaching first aid. They are obviously teachers who can teach everything that they do already, but if they start getting a wee bit frightened about what they're delivering first aid wise, we'll be there to support them through this online portal. We've also included a starter pack, which would be bandages, wipes and all that kind of thing. Everything that will enable them to carry this training out. As Stuart says, we've costied up for mannequins to be there for the school to have. That will become theirs and they will then have to yes, upkeep it, but as long as the mannequins are looked after, they can last for years. That will then allow them to use this as and when they need it within their school day, whether they do it for two hours or as Colin says, whether they decide to do it for more. The resources that we give them, that will enable them to do this completely and be sustainable in their delivery with the arm reach help from us, basically. It's a question really to Colin, and then I'm going to come across to the girls. Through your experience, how would you encourage teachers to integrate the skills that you've learned into the curriculum itself? The actual curriculum itself, there are experiences and outcomes that I'm sure you're aware of, and if I say a few of them, health and wellbeing 215A, I am developing understanding of the body and can use it to maintain and improve my wellbeing and health 216A. I am learning to assess and manage risk and to protect myself and others and to reduce the potential for harm when possible 217A. I know and can demonstrate how to keep myself and others safe and how to respond in a range of emergency situations. That becomes more complex as you go through your primary school career, but it's more or less the same throughout the school only it becomes harder. It's already there. We already are doing it. We don't have dedicated mannequins and first aid providers in the school. Personally, I have a first aid qualification and I'm happy to do it. As I said, we're working part in our school, we sat down and said, what are the things, the main life skills that we want these children to leave school with? And first aid and emergency management was one of the ones that we wanted to do. So teachers would be fantastic to have an off-the-shelf resource. We make up our own resources and schools and teachers who know each other in different schools share resources, but to have an off-the-shelf resource, which is prepared by experts in conjunction with teachers, personally, I think is an excellent idea. Thank you. Thank you as well. I just want to put on record my thanks and your confidence and your calmness is incredible and I would have felt really confident if I'd have to do CPR with you next to me, but I'll take that away on and I'll always remember that if it does come to that. I know Joanne Lamont, our convener here, she's trained all her staff in CPR, first aid training, and I'm going to think about doing that for my team as well, so thank you for enthusing and inspiring us today. I'm going to ask you a question. How do you think that you could encourage other teachers in Scotland, because obviously this is only being delivered in very few schools at the moment? How would you enthuse and encourage teachers to be like Mr Peebles? I can't see your name, Mr Peebles. What would you say to them, and how would you say, come on, you can do this too? Ellie, you have a... I would say to them that it's quite good to know. The other kids should know it as well, so it would be quite good if you could teach them it. If you don't know on it, you could try and act as well. What would you say, Millie, to other teachers? I think if they see how useful it is, then they will want to do it, just if they see... Like, because if you know what they mean, you could save a life. I think if they know that, then they would want to do it. I feel because I have been through a lot the schools to recruit the kids. Speaking to teachers face-to-face, they are really up for it, and a lot of the teachers do have first aid backgrounds, whether that's just the basics to help out just in case, but every single teacher that I've spoken to really just wants this to happen, and I feel like once it does happen a lot of the other schools will be like, yes, we want to get involved, because at the end of the day it is a great thing to know, and you will help people. David Towns? Can I put on record that in my eight years in Parliament and committee, that is probably the best start to any committee I've been in. In fact, you did earlier, Millie, for confidence in telling me what I was doing wrong with CPR there, as my 29% showed. You say that first aid is a life skill and something that you will take forward in later life, and a benefit to your communities. How can we achieve and encourage communities to take up first aid skills? Or, I can only speak for my own school, but we have actively gone to local businesses, we've contacted local parents and asked them to come in. We have a whole programme, as I said earlier, of life skills of which first aid is just one, and we have links with local parents who have come in, one who is a doctor who has come in and taught EpiPen training to the entire staff. We have parents that come in as doctors and nurses and first aiders, and they deliver some of these lessons for us, so we'll do CPR, we'll show the kids bandaging much better than we can in fairness. It actually really does improve your links with parents, and parents will then get more involved in the life of the school, and we've certainly found that parental and community working with us has increased through this programme that we've implemented. I think that this is an area where the concept of community helps schools as a useful contribution to make as well. It's been piloted in various local authority areas as a centre of education and information for the whole community. To add on to that, we will run courses after-school for parents of less-able or more deprived children in the life skills that we've been teaching their children as well. One would make mention of another initiative that we are currently beginning to work on with colleagues in the British Red Cross and Scottish Ambulance Service, which is to look at a joint community resilience programme, which would be to bring all the different initiatives of this sort and others. Community first responder schemes are volunteers, the respect of volunteers, to provide some falls clinic, for example, something that colleagues in Wales have piloted. Volunteers who are ready and available at short notice to go out to help someone in that situation, to take some of the pressures off the emergency services. I think that this is a separate but very interesting initiative. Another example of how building from this base block, you could take the skills and knowledge and a contribution to making communities generally more resilient and safer to quite a wide extent. In your petition, it notes that St Andrew's first aid trains thousands of people in life-scaven skills across a wide range of different age groups. Can you give some examples of that and expand on your bandage programme? I delivered the bandage project across the schools in Glasgow, so that was started in 2015. It is still running just now. It ran across four schools initially in Glasgow, which were St Rock's Springburn academy, Clevedon and John Paul academy. They did it for a couple of years, so basically we taught them the full of third year in the emergency first aid course, the same as Joanne Starr, so the exact same course, and from that we also taught them in a peer element. So basically we didn't know again everything comes down to funding for ourselves also, so we didn't know how long we were going to be able to keep up going into the schools, so we wanted to make sure that we were making the schools resilient and sustainable and carrying on. So we developed a peer education programme as well. The kids who then had their basic first aid training were then given training in the peer element, which then enabled them to cascade their skills to the rest of the kids within their schools, which also then went on to the feeder primary schools in the area, and also parents' evenings and first year days, that kind of thing as well. I do have a couple of stories, success stories from that as well, so in 2015, in St Rock's, there was a teacher that came into the training with us as well, so a teacher came in and we then had pupils obviously fill up the rest of the spaces. A couple of months after the first aid training, we received a call that somebody in the school had taken a heart attack, it was a pupil who had taken a heart attack, but the symptoms, and again unless you've done the training, you've been lucky enough to go and do it, you don't always know the symptoms that aren't the ones that just stick out, so this young girl at the time, it was severe indigestion that she was feeling, and she just had slight pains, but the pains were in her shoulders and that kind of thing. Now a lot of people were saying, I'll just sit down, just have a glass of water, you'll be okay. The teacher and one of the pupils that had been on the first aid course stayed new straight away, that these were symptoms of a heart attack, the new straight away that was a cardiac problem, just simply because it was going through the training that we had did, they knew that these symptoms were more in line with something like that because of the persistence of the symptoms. They saved that wee girl's life because she got straight to hospital, they treated her for a heart attack, got her straight to hospital and she had no long lasting damage from that, and that was just from a four-hour training course in basic first aid. The same year in Clevedon secondary, a dealt with a couple of pupils and one of the pupils he did, the first aid and the peer element, and he suffered his self with diabetes and he'd had it for years, it was type 1 diabetes, he'd had it from him, he was very, very young and he'd went through quite a lot of years of not managing it properly because he didn't quite have an understanding, although it was himself the condition, but he was young. He would even come up after PE to my classes and you knew he'd been overdone it because he would come up and you could see him having symptoms of gun anti-hypoglycemic attacks. Once we went through that part of the training, he started to understand more and this is to touch on what Stuart said about the consequences. Obviously he had the condition, he knew his condition better than anybody obviously, but he didn't necessarily know what was always going on inside his body with that and what the consequences of that were through doing that training. He then was able to manage his condition much better and I then worked with him for a few years because the peers in Clevedon were absolutely fantastic and they worked in their local communities all the time. He was able to live a far better life after that because he understood the consequences simply from doing a diabetes section with us. A third one, this story, some of you might know this one, this was in 2016 but it was also someone who came from the bandage programme. His name was David Corrigan and he actually ended up going on to win the Brave at Hat award. Now David had done his basic first aid training by myself and two weeks later, in a similar story to Rebecca's, two weeks later he had been walking down Ergyll Street and a man got hit by a bus in front of him and again he was cool, confident, collected because he had just done the training. Again a four-hour course that was all it was, that's far more than we are now proposing as well, it's a far less time commitment we're now proposing but he had done a four-hour course. Again he was able to then get that man into a safe position, he used his initiative to go into the shops round about and get white roll, things like that because you're not always going to go about with a first aid box but he knew how to equate that to what would be on a first aid box. He stopped all the bleeding, got the man into recovery position, got an ambulance, saved his life, all simply we're doing the bandage project that we provided but again we were only able to get into four schools with that and that's why we started looking at this proposal. We want it that every single child in Scotland has got access to what we've already given to these four schools that we've been in but we need help to do that. So we have the first aid knowledge and we have all these great stories. I am very lucky to have worked with all these children, it gives me just as much joy as it gives aim and we are lucky to do that but we now are at a position where we have the expertise there and we now need help to be able to roll that out right across. We are very proud of the efforts of our volunteers around the country, of our staff and our community projects. In our workplace training, social enterprise, which trains something like 15,000 to 20,000 people every year and the bandage programme, as Francis described, it was great but it's impact we want to see. It's not really about the cost, there are really strong arguments for doing this through schools rather than charitable endeavour. My partner as a teacher associate probably prompted me to say this, is that teachers are role models for young kids. They will learn more effectively from teachers. It's just going to be easier to organise first aid training as part of the curriculum if it's done naturally and organically through the staff than to have organisations like St Andrew's or British Heart Foundation or anyone else come from outside. That is a difficult thing, I'm sure that Collin would agree, to organise into the school day as well as the time and how we would roll it out that way. In terms of long-term investment, there is international research evidence that supports that pupils just retain more of the knowledge if it comes from teachers. Teachers are the best people to pass this information on. Another study that I would cite was found in 2012, I think, that after just one training session—four-hour training session, as Francis has described for teachers—those teachers were able to demonstrate CPR in schools as effectively, if not more effectively, than medical professionals who had been brought in to do the same thing. That is the way ahead in terms of the impact for Scotland as a whole. What would be the pupil commitment in the programme that you suggest? Clearly, the young people have got an interest in going and they develop further skills and they learn a lot from that, but the very basic proposal is how much time would it be for pupils in the school? You mentioned about 12 hours in your programme, but we would be flexible. That is somewhere where we would listen to teachers themselves in designing a programme. I think that going through the school progressively could be done with as little as one or two hours a year, or it could be done more intensively. However, we would listen to professionals that call. I think that it is down to the individual, not only the individual teachers but the individual school and how they could see it integrating into the teachers workload already. Yes, we do more and we do it in six-week blocks. We have a six-week block of a certain amount of pupils who will have first-aid training. Other pupils in the school will be getting something else at the same time, and they rotate throughout the school year, so everyone gets it during the school year. I would also probably include that. Yes, the first-aid training is a health and wellbeing outcome, but that type of thing can be linked into numeracy. You can do surveys on what to think about first-aid. You can link it into technology, which we quite often do. We get the pupils to make small infomercials with the iPads or other technology that we have got in the school. It is also really good for things such as role-play, which can be as low down as necessary in primary 1. There are great examples on the internet. There is one in particular of a five-year-old girl who makes an emergency call and directs an ambulance into her mother, who has had an epileptic seizure and has fallen down the stairs as an unconscious. One of the things that strikes me is that we had a petition not that long ago from a family who lost their child because nobody knew where the defibrillator was. It all felt of a part that it is like people not having confidence. There is support there by having the confidence to make that intervention at an early stage. It was mentioned about the excellence in Andrew's first-aid training that I and my staff got. What I reflected on there was my working life. There was the first aid. They were named on a poster somewhere. Why would you have a poster with somebody's name on it that you then got to go and find them when maybe we better have all knew, in terms, again, of the stories that have been heard? That is really important. Can I ask one last question? I am just going to ask you if there is one last thing you want to say to the committee before we come to conclusion. There is one more thing that you want to say, but can I ask you it? You may have referred to this in your statement, but it is just to confirm where we are in international terms, in terms of the level of training in first-aid and not just CPR. I think that you made that as a very important point. That broader need for first-aid rather than just CPR. Where are we international? I think that the honest answer is that more evidence and research is required. The way of collecting official statistics, for example, varies from country to country, so making international comparisons is not always as easy as it might be. There is a general lack of research on this topic that should really be addressed. That said, the evidence that exists suggests that Scotland has been poor by European standards, close to the bottom of league tables for bystander interventions, first-aid training number of current first-aiders, people who have trained within the past three years and the like. Although, in fairness, it is improving. Initiatives such as the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest strategy with the caveat about the way in which statistics are collected definitely show that initiatives of this sort are moving the dial in the right direction. Here is an opportunity to see significant improvements internationally. I cited the study in Denmark and others in the province of Pavia in Italy, where, again, instituting a primary schools training programme had knock-on benefits for that city, compared with surrounding areas that did not have it, because kids tell others and people demystify the whole experience. We are not—we stand very poorly compared with somewhere like Norway—forgive the standard comparison in this place, where about 90 per cent of people are trained in first-aid, but that did not happen overnight. Measures of this sort would move Scotland to similar levels in a relatively short space of time. Brian Whittle, you are here because this is not the norm to have this type of training for young people. I have probably the best answer. Where is the resistance coming from then, if you are not able to roll this out the way you want to? There is not necessarily resistance. A lot of it is down to funding, a lot of the time. Schools, obviously, again, have big pressures on them already for where their budget goes. We have to apply for funding to be able to provide this kind of thing, so the bandage project was funded, and it has been funded every year that we have ran it from outside funders. Therefore, within that funding, we do not have open-ended amounts of money. We can then roll it out into every single school. It is all costied up for a certain amount of schools. We have then always went towards schools in the higher areas of deprivation, because, as we have already alluded to, those are the areas that they perhaps would not be able to access in other ways and are probably more likely to go and something to happen out in the street. Therefore, we have had to go down that route. I am pretty sure that, if there was funding available, every school would want this kind of thing to be in their school, but it is down to a lack of funding and also down to a lack of, as we have already said, Collins being able to do it in his school. They have been able to fit it in, but a lot of the time teachers think straight away that it is going to get forced upon them and that it is something else that they are going to have to add to their already existing pretty heavy workload that they have, whereas we want to make sure that they know that we want to work with them and make this as easy as possible for them, but again it then comes down to us being able to have the funding to go in there. I would not necessarily say that there is resistance, it is just that there is a goalpost that we cannot get past because of funding issues. We did approach the minister at the time, Mrs Campbell, whose response on behalf of the Scottish Government was to acknowledge our efforts and to refer to the work that is being done by Sableife Scotland and the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest strategy and others, but as I have already emphasised, vital though the knowledge of CPR is, there are many other common emergencies, possibly even more common emergencies, where having the same basic level of understanding will help to save lives. CPR is great for a full first aid programme, even better, and it is not about the cost. I think that Frances is right that we perhaps are thinking, well teachers just don't want yet another mandated thing. It's not appropriate in Scotland in any case because that's not how our curriculum works, but we have from the outset not sought to use anything along the lines of compulsion or mandating the teaching and so forth. I think that it's more important that we bring teachers along with us, that we make it easy for them. I'm absolutely certain that the teaching profession would be on board with it when they realise, or that they are assisted, that this is really nothing too difficult, making it easy. It's an important skill. I feel that I'm not absolutely sure whether there are any real barriers to implementation of this measure. I can't think of any compelling reason, given that we're not talking about a huge amount of money here, but of course, if there are others that we haven't thought of yet, I'd be more than happy to address those. Okay, Richard Hamilton. Just a short question on that. Do you believe that it lies with the role of the director of education within the local authorities to influence what is in the curriculum? It absolutely does, of course, and I think that we recognise that, but I feel that there is scope for a stronger steer on this, because otherwise we will be left with the situation where some children in some areas will learn first aid or have the opportunity to learn, and others may never come across it in their entire school career, and they don't think that it should be left to such a patchwork. My last point on the act of hospital cardiac arrest strategy, which of course concludes in 2020. I think that there's room for a refresh of that if the Government wants to see an additional half a million people trained in CPR training. I think that the strategy has been effective. There are other measures that could be taken. I would maybe just touch, as my final contribution on, the petition by Jayden's Rainbow, which I think the convener was referring to. We have met with Miss Ora and her family and with Stuart McMillan MSP to learn more about their work. We absolutely want to assist them to take that forward, and, again, I have written to Miss Ora on behalf of the charity recently to suggest that we would like to meet with all the relevant parties in the area, the local authority, the MSP, and to work with that local charity. We can assist with our volunteers with defibrillators, which we have, which are still serviceable and have been used by volunteers, but are being replaced by newer models. I would like to work with the ambulance service to implement our public access defibrillation strategy in that council area in support of that charity. I think that if everyone were to work together, particularly the ambulance service, needs to provide some guidance as to where the most effective place to put these is, and we will do everything that we can to support those efforts and to work in partnership. I did say that I promised that if somebody wanted to see one last thing before we think about what we are going to do with the petition, I would be happy to hear from you. It is not compulsory, but if you have something that one last thing you wanted to say. Is there anything that our youngest first aidist this morning would like to say about what first aid is meant to you? Why do you enjoy doing it? I think that I just enjoy it because you get to help people and you get to meet new people. I think that's it, I just enjoy it. I started when I was 10, doing first aid, so I was still in primary when I was doing it. With my company, the Stanley company, it feels like a family with us because we are so used to each other. We bounce off each other, we are there to help. I am at City of Glasgow College, I am doing a child health and social care course, and I would like to be a child's nurse when I leave college and university, and that's all down to first aid. It started off as a hobby going every Thursday night for an hour or so to talk the basics, and now that I'm helping to teach kids, it's made me that's what I do, is my job. I feel getting that, it's just made me who I am and what I want to do. First aid is the skill that we want to teach, but what we want to create is confident and supported and resilient young people. I think that our young people always have a lot of pressure on them, but more and more we're seeing that a lot of them are perhaps struggling in different areas of their life, and I think that as society we all have a responsibility to give these kids as many skills as possible, to give them the confidence to be all-round individuals, and that's what we want to do. That's our end point. First aid is the skill, but we want to support the young people across Scotland to be resilient in themselves. I would echo that entirely. The four capacities talk about successful learners, responsible citizens, confident individuals and effective contributors. First aid sums that up. I just say that if there was ever an example in front of us of the confidence that it's given to young people who do first aid, we've got three fantastic young people here who display a degree of confidence and calmness at a committee that, quite often, older witnesses don't display. It's just a living example of that. It's more than just the bandages, really. I think that we've learned a huge amount from it. I think that, certainly in my view, one of the comments that's made about mental health first aid, the idea that you could encourage a young person to support their pal when they may be feeling a bit distressed is the kind of thing that we would also want to be able to do. We have to think now about what we want to do with the petition, if I'm right. Are we already right to the Scottish Government? We've written to the Scottish Government and we're waiting a response from them. I would be interested in what the teaching unions think. You've always referred to other people, and I'm very pleased that you've been in contact with the petitioners and with Stuart McMillan and trying to be practical in support of that. Other charities and organisations have an interest. I think that we would also want to hear from David. Are you in the light of writing to the authority of local authorities to see what the barriers are to putting it into their curriculum for excellence? I depends on how many responses we've written. We've already written to the local authorities and I think that we would want to underline to them and probably to cause them. Is there something that they're interested in and what would be the barriers to them delivering it? I think that the point that Franz has made is that it's not necessarily that there's resistance but that there are problems, so we may be pushing an open door and not really understanding what the challenges might be. Can I just echo your comments convener around not just the fact that it's a lifeskill, but that it's looking at the confidence of the young people in here today, their credit to themselves. As you know, I'm an advocate of allowing access to learning outside of the norm, whether that be sport or art or music or drama, but in this particular instance we can save somebody else's life. It's very compelling the evidence that you've given, but one of the things that strikes me is that there's one or two other petitions that are floating around that are in this arena and wondering whether or not we can maybe pull that together in terms of that piece of work. Given the information that we've received this morning from Stuart and the original submission with regard to the situation in Denmark and possibly Italy and Germany, I'd be keen to get, if we can, a spice paper on exactly how it's been rolled out in Denmark. I think that he mentioned Norway as well. All those examples would be good to have a look at. Can I just say that it's not the norm or protocol in this committee to applaud the panel, but I had to avoid the urge to applaud when you were all given evidence today? I wouldn't have given you enough yet for once in your life. Rachel? I think it would be worthwhile asking the Scottish Government what are their intentions for the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest strategy and whether that could be part of that ambition, because getting an additional half a million people trained in CPR is very much part of what these young people and St Andrews are doing. I also wondered whether it would be worth writing to the minister, Jo Fitzpatrick, in terms of public health and the preventative agenda here, and whether there was any way that that could be promoted as good practice? What we can certainly do is, as we've been in contact already since the first hearing of the petition, with the Scottish Government, we want to flag up to them the evidence of the official report and ask them to have a look at that, because I think that there's a straight health dimension and there's a public health dimension to it. The thing that I find most compelling around the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest strategy is that you're more likely to have a heart attack as I said at the beginning and less likely to get help if you're living in a less privileged area. In terms of fairness and justice, that can't be right, that you're less likely to have somebody's roundabout to help you. The point that I found very powerful is that it can't just be about CPR. It must be about that, but it can't just be about that, because there are other things that I've seen already. The response is that the young people have made have been to all sorts of different incidents that some of us would have stepped back from. What we would want to do is to reflect on the written submissions at a future meeting, and perhaps flag up to Spice. We'd be interested in some of those international comparators. If we haven't already done so to make contact with the teaching unions, I think that there's actually a resistance there. My own sense would be that the resistance would be if it simply created extra work and expectation without the support that's underpinning it. I think that we would be very interested in hearing from the Scottish Government around how that approach is a practical delivery of some of their policies. Is there anything else that we can usefully do? I think that we certainly would want to reflect on the evidence that we've heard. There's a whole number of strands there, and I'm very aware that it may have prompted you in terms of some of the other things that you're doing. If there were other things that you wanted to flag up to us that you thought would be useful to our consideration, please feel free to come back to us. I think that I've spoken for everybody on the panel. We want to thank you all very much for the evidence that you've given today. It's been very thought-provoking, very interesting, and certainly in the pre, but very entertaining as well, which is also a novelty. I want to thank you all very much for your attendance. I'm going to suspend briefly to allow the new to move away, and then we'll go on with the rest of the business, but thank you very much again. If I can call a meeting back to order. The next petition is petition 1551, lodged by Scott Pattinson on mandatory reporting of child abuse. The briefing paper sets out the background and previous actions on this petition. The Committee agreed in December 2015 that it would wait for the UK Government to consult and for the Scottish Government to respond to that consultation. A summary of that consultation in the UK Government action was published in March 2018. The Minister for Children and Young People wrote to the committee in October 2018 to advise the committee that, as things currently stand, the Scottish Government will not introduce legislation making mandatory reporting a legal requirement. There are a number of reasons for this, including that, following consideration of the evidence and views raised in the consultation, it agrees that the case for a mandatory reporting duty or duty to act has not been made. That appears to echo the content of submissions that this committee received. The majority of organisations that provide the submissions do not appear supportive of mandatory reporting. Sight and concerns that are moved towards mandatory reporting may have significant unintended consequences and that the current legislation should be given time to bed in and also be used to its full extent. The petitioner has responded to the committee, he makes some observations in his submission but also states that this is his final submission. I wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I think that a lot of work has been taken forward trying to understand the impact on survivors of abuse and supporting survivors. The inquiry into child abuse is part of that, but there are broader issues for those who have been abused in a family setting. I think that we have to decide whether that proposal helps or does it make a difference rather than saying, is this the way in which we simply support survivors. We do not want people to think that because we did not necessarily support the petition that we do not have a recognition of the terrible challenges that survivors of abuse still live with often into adulthood. I was very struck by the fact that there is such a wide range of people who did not feel that this particular report on mandatory reporting was going to help. I wonder if others have comments to make. The petition raises quite a lot of uncomfortable considerations. The first thing that struck me when the petition came along was why in earth would you not report or intervene in child abuse? As you usually alluded to, a lot of child abuse happens within a family setting. I have to say that, first of all, I was surprised, but then when reading through it, I recognised that the majority of organisations who submitted to the petition did not think that mandatory reporting was the way to go. As you have said, there is a lot of working on it. We have done a lot of work just within this committee on this particular issue and surrounding issues. I have to say that I am not sure that we can go any further with this particular petition. That is my gut field just now. I did note from the Minister for Children and Young People submission in October 2018 that officials will continue to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the Scottish child protection system, working closely with stakeholders and any relevant UK Government officials. It also gave me some confidence that it was not simply saying that it was not an issue for us, but that it recognised that it must constantly be open to ways in which it can ensure that the child protection system is effective. I echo that. I think that the salient point in the Scottish Government's response in October was that they feel that there is not a compelling argument for mandatory reporting at this time. I think that there is also a strong argument to allow the current legislation to bed in. I do not see how we can take this petition any further at the moment, given the responses that we have received. I wonder then whether we are suggesting that we would close the petition, recognising that the petitioner can, of course, petition the committee again at a later stage. However, in closing the petition, we would recognise that the Scottish Government itself has said that it is involved in a great deal of activity around this area, but that it has committed to continuing to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the child protection system. We agree that we would close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that it does not appear to be any support for the action called for on the petition, but that there is clear evidence that there is a recognition across the Parliament far beyond of the importance of being alive to the issues around child abuse and the need for a robust child protection system. Is that agreed? In that case, if we can move on, the next petition is petition 1595 by Sandy Taylor on a moratorium on shared space schemes. The committee last considered this petition in September 2017. The committee noted the outcome of a seminar on shared space schemes and anticipated that the petitioner would take part in a working group in relation to findings in the seminar report. The petitioner, in his latest submission, reports the acid difficulty in arranging a meeting that he would like to have with the Minister for Older People and Equalities, and he says that he is concerned about responses received from Transport Scotland. He points to the United Kingdom Government guidance note on using shared space to improve high streets for pedestrians, which has been temporarily withdrawn for updating. It suggests that, in his opinion, the Scottish Government should take similar action and that he understands that schemes are currently under construction in Scotland. I should say that Rona Mackay, who was a member of the committee, was unable to be here today, but she was obviously very aware of the issues that she highlighted with the petitioner as he was a constituent of hers. Do you have any comments or suggestions for action? It is interesting to note in the briefing papers that the UK Department for Transport has recommended that local authorities pause the development of shared space schemes, while they review and update their guidance. Given the situation south of the border, it may be worthwhile to write to the Scottish Government once again to ask if it still holds its previous view that the decision on shared spaces is very much an issue for the local authorities, rather than a national government. I also note the petitioner's point that he has approached the issue on a national basis rather than just a local basis, which was highlighted to us when the petitioner came to us at the start. It is also an issue of equality in human rights. I am slightly surprised that, despite the best efforts of the petitioner and the MSP Rona Mackay, they have not managed to secure a meeting with ministers for older people and equalities. I would have expected that everyone would expect them to go down to raise the issue. There might be some way that we could encourage the minister to meet the petitioner in the hope that the whole shared spaces issue can be looked at, not just on an equalities issue, but on a planning issue as well. Certainly, from my recollection, there was a sense in which the message of combat from the Government was that it did want to engage with the issues that the petitioner had raised and that he should be involved in a working group. We might try to establish that, but the point that you make about the minister for older people and the equalities is perhaps being aware of why that matters so much for particular groups, because it feels like it is just a planning issue. However, as we discovered, there was an equality dimension to the perhaps we would not have thought of if it had not been for the petitioner. Brian Whittle I agree with Angus MacDonald. Although the planning is part of the issue, the real issue is anybody being excluded from those areas, which is exactly the opposite of what the design is designed to do. I encourage the minister to at least hear the petitioner out. Given that the petitioner has been sitting in here for some time, I think that it would give it some sort of weight in credibility. The minister for transport, when he was in, was quite positive of trying to respond to the issues that were being highlighted. At the UK level, the minister is obviously updating his guidance. We have seen that there is an issue there. We want to clarify with the Scottish Government again just what their position is. Is it that they do not have a role at all, but it is up to each individual local authority, or is their guidance that is going to go out and perhaps reflect in his question about the usefulness of engaging with the petitioner, I think, would be helpful? Is that agreed, Rachel? Has there been any indication that the petitioner will be included within the working group, or is it an invitation? My sense is that what the Scottish Government is now saying is that it is a matter for local authorities, but perhaps that is something that we could usefully ask as well. It may not have been that it was intention to engage the petitioner directly with the minister. I can understand that, but if there was a group who had an interest in the field, and he was my centre in the past, it was an expectation that he might be involved with that, it might have been to simply misunderstand my part, but that would be worthwhile clarifying. If that is agreed, we will write to the Scottish Government to clarify its view on its role in relation to shared spaces. I suggest that it would be useful for the minister if at all possible. We recognise the constraints on her time to meet with the petitioner, but there is certainly some clarity on how the petitioner has been part of the work going forward. If that is agreed, we can move to the next petition, which is petition 1640, lodged by Eileen Bryant, calling for action against irresponsible dog breeding. We took evidence in this petition last year from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, during which she highlighted a number of initiatives and other measures, including consultations, which have been taken forward to address the concerns and issues raised in the petition. We invited the petitioner to respond to the evidence, but unfortunately, a submission has not been received. The clerk's note advises that the Government is expected to report shortly on its consultation on dog cat and rabbit breeding activities. The note also refers to Christine Grahame's final proposal for a responsible breeding and ownership of dog Scotland Bill. The final proposal has secured the required number of supporters, and understanding the current number is about 32, from across the parties represented in the parliamentary bureau in order to allow it to proceed as a member's bill. Members will be aware that this is subject to the Scottish Government advising whether it intends to bring forward legislation in the same or similar terms. The Government must provide any such notification by the end of this month, and wonder if members have any comments or suggestions for action. I should declare that I am one of the 32 that signed and supported Christine Grahame's proposal for the responsible breeding and ownership of dog Scotland Bill. I think that it's fair to say, convener, that the petition has done its job, and the bill proposed by Christine Grahame covers the issues that are specifically raised in this petition, and we'll hopefully see the bill progress soon. So, well done to Aileen Bryant, the petitioner. Any answer that you would be suggesting that we close the petition? I would suggest that we close the petition, given that things have moved on significantly since it was submitted. Of the Government to perhaps bring forward legislation and consider the areas that the petitioner had actually brought forward, so I do feel that perhaps that will move quicker than perhaps this committee could do, so I agree with closing the petition. David. We agree that we would close the petition understanding order 15.7 on the basis that the Scottish Government and other agencies continue to take forward a range of measures to address the issues raised in the petition and subject to any indication from the Scottish Government that intends to bring forward legislation. The proposed members' bill, recently lodged by Christine Grahame, is expected to cover those areas of concern. In agreeing to close the petition, I think that we should recognise that there has been progress, and I would certainly argue as a consequence of the work done by the petitioner herself. I want to thank her for bringing the petition forward and note that this is the one where I think the petitioner can be satisfied that it has come to a satisfactory conclusion. With that, can we move on to the final petition for consideration this morning, which is petition 1651 by Marion Brown on behalf of recovery and renewal, on prescribed drug dependence and withdrawal. I welcome Maurice Corry MSP to the meeting for this item. Members have a note by the clerk, along with copies of recent submissions that were not publicly available at the time of the meeting papers being issued, but which are now online. As I have stated previously, it is not always possible for the clerks to review, process and publish written submissions at the time meeting papers that are issued due to the significant volume of correspondence that is received, not just in relation to this particular petition, but also the other 70 to 80 petitions that are under the committee's consideration. The clerk's note refers to the Scottish Government's submission of December 2018, which states that the chief medical officer has established a short-life working group on prescription medicine dependence and withdrawal. It is anticipated that the group will meet three to four times and is expected to report its findings in the second half of this year. Members will see that, in her most recent submission, the petitioner has requested expressly that, quote, the full evidence of this petition be taken into account by the short-life working group as formal evidence of experts by experience. That is something highlighted in the Scottish Government's submission as being a specific focus of the short-life working group, and I wonder whether members have any comments or suggestions for action, and what I might do is ask Maurice Corry if he wants to make a contribution for us. Yes, thank you, convener. Do you want me to go now? Yes. Yes, thank you very much indeed for having me here today to talk on this. I would say that I realise that it has gone to the short-life working group in relation to the next stage or rather the recommendation to the committee. However, I have one concern, and it is about psychotherapy in relation to that. Can I ask a question? Have any psychotherapy experts and patients been invited on to the short-life working group or indeed attended meetings thereof? That is not something that I would know, but it is something that we can certainly ask. Therefore, I would suggest that it might be considered if I may put that forward to you, convener, to put to the short-life working group on a recommendation. Perhaps for the record and to help us, why would you want to make that recommendation? I think that, basically—and this is my next point if I may move on to that—surely it is absolutely vital that the voice of the patient and the analysis of personal accounts with prescribed drug dependence and withdrawal are submitted and are now submitted to the Public Petitions Committee, or if not so. It was written in a report in October 2018 that would be taken into account without fail in relation to the whole matter. In other words, experience is what is happening. That provides all the evidence of actual patients' experiences when taking prescribed medication. I am aware that, from psychotherapy experts, veterans with PTSD, which I know quite a bit about on my side of the business, have been put in similar courses of medication as described and have experienced terrible consequences such as suicidal and homicidal tendencies. I know that there is an example in this country—horses for forces and the borders—which practice with psychotherapy, and I have seen the results of that very positively. I would ask that that might be considered, where you can, if it is not too late, to put that forward on your recommendations. I think that we can certainly refer to the fact that you have made that request and the arguments for it. I also request from the petitioner that the evidence to this committee before is—I will take guidance from the clerks—whether that would be permitted. However, most of what is compliant with the law is on public view anyway, so that would be something that we could make available to the groups that would be aware. One of the things that is very clear from the petition is that there are very strong feelings on that and very strong evidence of people's direct experience, which, obviously, it would be useful for the group to be aware of. There may be a life to it anyway, but it is certainly—even just seeing the volume of it—it has its own impact, and I think that it has an impact on the committee as a whole. Brian Whittle One thing is that, obviously, the old party for parliamentary group, which was a report produced in August 2008—the patient's voice, obviously—is a very apposite on this particular subject. I think that it is something that has been taken into consideration, but something that I certainly would commend to be followed up. I think that the question of alternative methods has been considered, but, certainly, from the armed forces side, we have a lot of experience that has come from this. We have seen the suicide rate, sadly. It is still not good, but it has certainly been looked at. Obviously, it is related in some cases to treatment. Therefore, we have seen it, as I say, with the use of animals—for example, horses, I have seen it with dogs and things like that—and certainly very positive outcomes on it. I would commend and implore that state in consideration. Brian Whittle I echo the thoughts of Maurice Corry suggesting that the lived experience is hugely important to this particular particular party, because I am sure that we all have constituents or people that we know in this situation. In particular, I am looking at one in which chronic pain required or prescribed drugs were that became addicted to those drugs, which changed behaviour to a point near suicide. That person decided to come off the drugs and was given no help whatsoever to do that. He was left to his own devices and is now left with either being a chronic pain or being addicted to pain-killing drugs. That stark evidence is really, really important for this particular group to look at. I echo Maurice Corry's thoughts. Rachael Hamilton I note from the clerks' notes that the short-life working group has patient support community as well as clinical cross-section or wide cross-section of people involved. Whether we ask the Scottish Government who is being considered as part of the community, rather than the clinical part of that working group? Rachael Hamilton We have the note. People can see that it is in the public domain who is on that group. I know that Irene Oldfather, her work around dementia, has been very much led by experience and the experience of carers and so on. I would not pretend to note the others, but we can certainly flag up to the short-life working group and the representations that have been made about the importance of those with that experience being heard in the process. On what we would be doing around the petition, we would want to defer further consideration of the petition until after the short-life working group has reported its recommendations, which we then, I am assuming again, will be open for public response. Maurice Cackette I will have to talk as quickly as possible. One of the things that I have discovered, obviously looking into this, has been the fact of the relationship between the medical professions and their patients. There is a feeling that they are not being believed possibly, maybe stifling. It seems to be there and that might reflect. We have noticed a bit of this with a veteran side. There is no disrespect to anybody, but there may be a question of understanding that and the communication between the two. I would ask you to pass that forward. The issue has been in the committee's consideration of a number of petitions, whether it was in ME, Mesh or the extent to which there may be a gap between what clinicians believe is happening and what the direct experience is. It is not that they do not want to know about the direct experience, but they may be seeing it in different ways. It is just recognising that it is important to reflect on it. That is why it is useful for it to highlight the submissions that we have received, not just because their individual testimony is very powerful, but simply because the volume of them is striking. Obviously, those engagements would have to make the balance and understand all the different bits of it that they would need to reflect on. However, the stories of people who are prescribed drugs and then that becomes more of a problem than the thing that drugs were prescribed for is a challenge. I think that we would hope that the short-life working group would reflect on that. Unless there are further comments, I think that we would want to, as we have agreed, defer further consideration of the petition until it is reported to recommendations. However, I highlight to the short-life working group this conversation and the submissions that we have received in relation to what for a lot of people has been a very difficult and challenging issue. If that is great, thank you very much, Maurice Corry, for your attendance, and thank you everyone else. I'll close the meeting.