 Hello, I'm Lewis MacDonald, I'm a regional MSP for North East Scotland and I'm also the convener of the Health and Sport Committee of the Scottish Parliament. It's important that the committee hears both from people who work in Scotland's NHS and from people who use it. The committee is made up of 11 MSPs from all the parties in the Scottish Parliament and our role is to ensure that we hold the Scottish Government to account. Our job is to make sure that Scottish Government policies in health and care and in sport are designed and delivered to the maximum benefit of the people of Scotland. We do this in two ways. First, we scrutinise proposed legislation that's brought before the Scottish Parliament. So if a bill is brought forward in an area like organ donation or staffing levels in the NHS, it will come to our committee. Secondary legislation on health and care also comes to us for formal consideration. Secondly, we can conduct inquiries into any area within our remit where we believe we can add value and improve services to the people of Scotland. Recent committee reports on these inquiries have included technology and innovation in the NHS, healthcare in prisons and increasing participation in sport. We need to make sure from our perspective as the Royal College of Nursing that we obviously have the right nursing workforce with far fewer vacancies with people at the right skill level to make those clinical decisions so that people's care can be delivered in the community where that is the most appropriate thing to do. The care that this population that is in the prison environment received in the community, as far as I can see from research, there is a very underserved population in the community. I think that prison unfortunately serves an opportunity to try to establish the health needs of that very challenging population. There are huge issues in terms of people not coming into the service, both in the NHS and more broadly. When you have had a 16 to 17 per cent real-terms pay cut over a period of six years, that does not make the services attractive as they should be. I think in workforce planning terms we do need to pay more attention to issues like Brexit. Hearing this information first hand means the committee is better placed to hold government ministers and public bodies to account, ensuring rigorous scrutiny on behalf of the people of Scotland. In the final analysis, policy issues are about people. The committee is keen to hear from staff and patients about their experience of the NHS. This lived experience is vital in giving us insight into how health and care services are actually delivered. Staffing levels was not good with my father failing factory skill because I campaigned after I started to work with the NHS and we got six more nurses on that ward funded by the government. In the evening, my son died, we were told initially that the staffing levels were short by 30 per cent in the maternity unit. We go back to missed opportunities if you correctly monitor, collate and to use the buzz words, draw down any adverse events. It should be possible to identify recurring themes and one of the recurring themes is inadequate staffing. Just to actually give you a kind of overview on that, nationally the each baby counts campaign identified that one in four, you know, stallbuffer, neonatal deaths can be contributed or, you know, to lack of resources nationally. So there is a problem with staff levels and resources. We also use informal evidence gathering and fact-finding visits to hear first hand from health professionals and patients. These are every bit as valuable as formal settings, allowing us to get a feel for how policy choices affect those on the receiving end. As part of the committee's short inquiry into the Scottish Government's drug strategy, members met Jim Shanley at a drug recovery centre in Edinburgh. We asked him how the clients felt about the value of the visit. It was a relaxed atmosphere and I think that's important. And again, it was very much about them setting the pace of what they wanted to discuss, albeit there were a number of headlines in terms of what we wanted to cover. But I think it was approachable, comfortable and I think it was a sort of honest and transparent debate and hopefully allowed the two politicians that came to go away with perhaps a greater understanding of what it's like to be someone who's had a problem with substance misuse. We recently invited a group of young people in their late teens and early 20s to come to the Scottish Parliament and to talk to members about their experiences and their priorities in the areas which fall within the committee's limits. Their views will help to inform the committee's future. I hope this film has demonstrated the value which the Health and Sport Committee places on the views and experiences of everyone living in Scotland. You too, by engaging with the committee, can play your part in ensuring the NHS in Scotland continues its onward and proven journey.