 The next item of business is our members' business debate on motion 5165 in the name of Emma Harper in celebrating international nurses day on 12 May 2017. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put in carassol as members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call on Emma Harper to open the debate. Ms Harper, seven minutes are thereabouts please. Thank you. I am really pleased to believe in the members' debate today in celebrating international nurses day, which happens to be on Friday. The motion states that nurses are the single largest group of healthcare professionals in the UK. They are estimated at greater than 20 million nurses and midwives across the world, and they account for 52 per cent of the healthcare workforce. The motion also acknowledges that nursing encompasses the autonomous collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families and communities in all settings. It includes the promotion of physical and mental health, prevention of illness and care of people who are ill, disabled and who are dying. Outstanding care happens everywhere and at every stage of life in Scotland and across the world. The International Council of Nurses presented a paper with case histories about the work that nurses do in different parts of the world. From HIV treatment and care in South Africa, family partnership for improved maternal care in urban USA, access and food aid in Syria, bariatric best period of practice in Australia and caring for people who have contracted Ebola virus in Sierra Leone to developing community respiratory early warning scoring systems for persons with chronic lung health problems in NHS of recent Galloway. I have my own case history. I am a nurse. Prior to Hollywood, Hollywood 2015, Hollywood was the other place I worked. I was a nurse for 33 years and my specialties are surgery and education. Even though I am not working as a nurse currently, that does not stop me thinking like and approaching problems with my nurse heed on. My sisters are nurses too, and between us we have 130 years of nursing experience and us Harper sisters have contributed to more than a quarter of a million nursing hours of patient care. Having a career in nursing allows us all to travel internationally and work and learn from other professionals and other cultures about the best way to care for people. Us sisters have worked with medical personnel from all across the world. The medical community is wholly international and what we learn from each other truly contributes to enhancing the lives of not only our patients but ourselves. According to the Royal College of Nursing, nurses are the superheroes of healthcare. I met two superheroes a couple of weeks ago. Marcea Ramsay, who is director of operations for Alzheimer Scotland, and Claire Stroin, the Wigtonshire service manager of the recently opened dementia resource centre in Stranraer. Both are nurses and both are proud of the new facility and the potential opportunity to develop this great service of support for people with a diagnosis of dementia, as well as support for their families. May 12 is chosen date to celebrate international nurses at nurses day, as it is the birthday of Florence Nightingale. Florence is probably one of the most famous nurses. She modernised the care approach during the Victorian Age and was instrumental in improving care by implementing the new mathematical science of statistical analysis. There are other famous nurses worth celebrating also. Mary Seacole, who is Jamaican-born, was a contemporary of Florence Nightingale. Both had different approaches to the care for the soldiers, but both had the same idea and goal to reduce the mortality of the people that they were caring for. Both proved to be formidable women who worked to save the lives of the soldiers. Pauline Cafferke, who almost lost her life when she contracted Ebola hemorrhagic virus when caring for victims of the virus in Sierra Leone, is going to talk a wee bit more about Pauline Cafferke in a wee while. Each year, the international councils of nurses celebrate by focusing on a specific theme. This year, the theme is titled, Nurses, A Voice to Lead, Achieving Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals are SDGs, and they are a set of 17 goals that are created by the World Health Organization and the United Nations. The goals tackle issues that affect people, property, peace, partnership and the planet. Goal number three is titled, Good Health and Wellbeing, but all goals are linked directly to nursing and promoting optimisation of the people's lives by addressing poverty, hunger, education and promoting gender equality to name the first few goals. David and Catherine at the Scotland Malawi stand next to the members block. They are supporting the Sustainable Development Goals as well. If you have not visited them next to the members lobby and had your photo taken, I would urge members to do that, to learn about what the sustainable goals are in relationship with Scotland and Malawi. I do not have time to explain all 17 goals, but I would urge anyone to read more about the specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. Nurses are key to partnering with people so that they work to achieve the who and you in SDGs. Those are not new tasks to the already challenging work day that face nurses across primary and acute care. The International Council of Nurses wants to make it clear that those sustainable development goals are already embedded in the current practice across the globe, and they want to highlight that for us all. I urge everyone to celebrate the work of nurses, thank your nurses when you meet them. I thank the Scottish Government for choosing to keep the bursary for nurses to support them during training at universities and Scottish hospitals. A career in nursing is hugely satisfying. My three sisters and I are already testified to that. Promoting and supporting men and women to step into nursing should be continued by the Scottish Government. I notice the sun shining on me right now. I call on everyone to mark international nurses day by doing we things, share a message of support on social media, watch and share the RCN support video as it contains messages of thanks from people who have received care from nurses across many specialities or donate to a nurse charity. Finally, I reiterate this to nurses across the world and certainly here at home. You are already contributing to the sustainable development goals. Let's just tell everyone to celebrate that and celebrate international nurses days. I move the motion. I also thank Emma Harper for bringing forward the motion today. Like her, I come from a family of nurses. I'm married to a nurse, both my brothers are nurses, and I'm not sure that we've clucked up as many years of nursing practices as Emma, but we're getting there. I would also like to refer members to my register of interests. I am a registered mental health nurse and I currently hold an honorary contract with Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, which allows me to continue my practice as a nurse. Florence Nightingill is often described as the lady with the lamp, but she was, as we can all appreciate, so much more than this. Not only did she challenge expectations, but she was a truly gifted healthcare professional, as skilled in the study of healthcare as the creation of new standards and practices, and as committed to research as statistical analysis, and a true pioneer in the planning of hospitals and wards. She was an innovator, introducing new strict cleanliness regimes that drastically reduced mortality on her wards, and she was compassionate, heading to the horrors of the cryomy of war to help the wounded. Fundamental and radical service redesign is how nursing was born with Florence, and it's how it continues to stay relevant and at the forefront of healthcare, and my own experience in mental health nursing has borne this out. There has been a concerted effort to reduce the stigma around mental illness, and we have encouraged people to access care and treatment at an earlier stage. We now talk about mental illness instead of shying away from it, and that is a tremendous success that I have seen as a mental health nurse. However, at the same time, those changes were difficult. Service users, carers, staff and the public were worried and concerned about bed and hospital closures, worried that services would not meet their expectations, and they were worried about safety. Change is the one constant for nursing. We develop and adapt to new ways of working and new practice. In short, we move forward with what works rather than sticking with outdated ways that don't deliver the results that we need. Florence Nightingale created and reformed nursing in part by redesigning wards, improving outcomes of care by reframing the environment, and in mental health nursing we continue to follow the spirit of reform, moving care away from the existing models and existing hospital settings to move care into the community. We have to be open to discussion about what can be done differently and what can be done more effectively to do what is best for our patients. Service redesign is a term that can still instill fear, but it is how nursing began. Changes to services can be challenging, but with the challenges come opportunities, opportunities to make real and positive changes to real people's lives. This year, the international college of nurses has chosen the theme, nurses, a voice to lead, achieving the sustainable development goals for international nurses day. Every day, nurses' work has a significant impact in delivering sustainable development goals, not just in ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing, but in areas such as education and poverty too. Those social determinants of health are the conditions in which people grow, work and live, and the work of nurses across the world seeks to address those wider issues, not just the immediate clinical needs. Pauline Cafferkey, one of my constituents, is an exemplar of those dedication and nurses to help to improve the lives of those with health and social challenges. Pauline and so many other volunteer nurses work tirelessly to help people in Sierra Leone who were affected by Ebola, and Pauline herself became infected. Despite that, she is planning to return to Sierra Leone and will continue to help those who need assistance. Pauline and her nursing staff here in Scotland are at the forefront of healthcare, with nearly 60,000 nurses working across the NHS in Scotland to improve the care and the lives of our fellow citizens. Every day, each of our nurses contributes to service redesign, to developing and redefining best practice, each carrying on the work of Florence Nightingale. The Royal College of Nursing is running a Twitter thunderclap where we can all offer our support online, and you can also write about a nurse that has made a difference to your life or to your family's life through the nurse hero programme. On 12 May, I asked the chamber to join with me in marking International Nurses Day in a small way. Let's tell our nurses that we appreciate the amazing work that they do and encourage the next generation of nurses, too. Thank you very much. I call Dorrel Carlin to follow by Anas Sarwar. Mr Cameron, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Sadly, I can't make it three nurses in a row, and I feel like I'm letting the side down. I'd like to begin by thanking Emma Harper for lodging that motion. I, too, like to put on record my admiration and respect for our nursing staff across Scotland. The chamber is definitely a richer place when MSPs from a wide variety of professional backgrounds are able to bring that invaluable experience into debates like that. I pay tribute to Emma Harper and Claire Hogey for their contributions, which are informed by their day-to-day experience. Nurses are, by and large, the public face of the NHS in our hospitals and community health centres. They do an incredibly tough job, often on unsociable working hours. As we heard earlier in today's debate, they are taking on increasing workload as demand grows. They are the bastions of our health service, and we must always remember that. As Emma Harper intimated in her motion, International Nurses Day was set up to coincide with the birth of Florence Nightingale, one of the most famous nurses in the world who was largely credited as the founder of modern nursing. Her persona, as has been said, as the lady with the lamp, made her a beacon of hope to the soldiers who were injured during the Crimean War. However, it is her significant contribution to modern nursing that she is and should be better remembered for. Her book, Notes on Nursing, was published in 1859, yet many, if not all of its contents, continue to have stark relevance today. Today, we talk about the issues of hospital cleanliness. Florence Nightingale tackled that. Today, we talk about the importance of diet. Florence Nightingale tackled that. Today, we talk about making sure that our homes are clean, ventilated and warm. Florence Nightingale tackled that. As Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and that springs to mind when we think and talk about Nightingale's observations on healthcare. One nurse that the motion does not mention, but I would like to mention, is Elsie Inglis. I want to mention her briefly as we debate this motion because she was a famous Scottish nurse, not for that reason alone, but she was an incredible person. She founded the Scottish Women's Hospitals Unit, which provided nursing staff, as well as a variety of auxiliary personnel to battlefields across the European continent, despite the incredible barriers that women faced at the time. Her pioneering work saved thousands of lives, and she and many others who go unrecognised in history should always be remembered. I mentioned some of those famous and renowned female nurses because it is important to understand and remember that nursing is a predominantly female profession. The most recent statistics show that almost 90 per cent of nursing staff in Scotland are female, with just under 60,000 women employed and around 7,000 men. That is not to say that we do not value our male nurses as much. Of course we do. Nursing is also a profession with vacancies. I do not make this point to score a political point, but rather to raise awareness of the fact that all of us in this chamber need to do more to encourage more men and women to take up nursing as a profession. We need to promote this sector to young people who are about to leave school or university and are unsure of what path to take. Nursing can be extremely rewarding and provides people with an immeasurable number of important skills. Indeed, as we continue the shift of care from acute to community-led services, the importance of community nursing will grow significantly. Deputy Presiding Officer, nurses are extremely important in our NHS, and we must always recognise that. Of course, yes. Apologies for intervening during a member's debate. I know that that is not the usual form, but I just wanted to state for the record that Elsie Engels was a doctor, not a nurse. By the way, you can intervene in a member's debate, so it is not a precious regime. I will perhaps take that up with a member at a later date, but my information was that she was a nurse. As I was just closing, nurses are the lifeblood, Deputy Presiding Officer, of the health service. Without their work, the service would not survive. I would like to state my thanks to the Royal College of Nursing for their service in representing nurses across Scotland and for their continued efforts to improve that service. I would like to close by wishing all nurses the very best wishes on International Nurses Day on Friday. Thank you very much, Mr Cameron. I thank Emma Harper for bringing forward the debate and directly congratulating her for her immense service to the NHS and that of her family. I am always struck by the number of people who come across who are NHS families who have their brothers, their sisters, their aunts, their uncles, their sons and their daughters also going on to work in the profession and dedicating their lives to caring for our fellow citizens. I genuinely thank you to Emma Harper and to all those people right across the country who dedicate their lives to our national health service. I also want to put on record all those bodies and unions that represent our fabulous nurses, whether that be the RCN—I would be like to say that Tresa Fife—of the RCN is in the gallery today, or indeed other trade unions, including Unison, who support those nurses all year round. Emma Harper rightly mentioned the sustainable development goals. She mentioned the Scotland Malawi project that we have as a stall outside the members' gallery. It is important to recognise the role that we take for granted here and the fact that we have a universal healthcare system here in the United Kingdom. That is an ambition that we should have right around the world for access to a universal healthcare system. Numar, if you are from the poorest background or the most wealthiest background, are you raised your religion, your nationality, your gender, your sexuality? Do you have a healthcare system that is there to care for you and does not matter whether you have money in your pocket at nought? I think that that is an ambition that hopefully we can see come true through our work, whether that be directly through the Department for International Development. It is something that I am absolutely proud was introduced by Labour Government and then it is budget trebled under the Labour Prime Minister, or indeed whether that is individual healthcare workers who go from here to help to spread their own expertise and knowledge in other parts of the world. The world of poly and catharici is just one of many, many examples of people who risk their own lives to go to other parts of the world, sometimes in the most dangerous places to go and care for other people. On that, it is important to say that we still have challenges here in Scotland in terms of our NHS workforce, our NHS staff, on a daily basis perhaps have to come across people that have threatening behaviour, people who are in a very difficult, emotional situation, and they have to take that on the front line. I think that we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for that. As is being mentioned by Donald Cameron, there are pressures and strains on the NHS at the moment in Scotland. We have just had a debate all through this afternoon about the stresses and strains on our NHS staff right here at home. I do note with disappointment that we have just come from voting down a pay increase for NHS staff into a debate that I am sure all of us want to be part of, which is celebrating International Nurses Day. As the nurse who told me this morning that I met Graeme this morning said, goodwill is one thing and goodwill does not put food on the table. I think that that is an important thing for us to remember. I hope that all of us across this Parliament can resolve to work together not only to champion the role of nurses on International Nurses Day but to champion the valuable role of nurses all year round, whether that be at home or abroad, and that we can continue to have a national health service that is a gold standard beacon, not just for the rest of the United Kingdom but for places right around the world. We can say that we can do effective healthcare free at the point of need. Your society can recognise that we all come together to pay our dues so that we can care for all our members of our society no matter what their background is. That is a principle that I am so proud of in Scotland. That is a principle that I am proud of that our nurses live and breathe every single day. I hope that we can all resolve to make that principle a reality for people right around the world. Thank you, Mr Sarwar. I call Alison Johnstone to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am proud to join others in this chamber celebrating International Nurses Day. I would like to thank Emma Harper for securing this debate, for her contribution to nursing and also for her passion and expertise on this issue. Nurses throughout our national health service and social care system do truly heroic work. We must celebrate their achievements and thank them for their dedication and tireless care. From our neonatal units to our hospices, nurses care for the most vulnerable and lead increasingly complex care in community settings. I also want to thank all our healthcare support workers for the vital work that they do working alongside our nursing staff to support patients. In the time that I have available today, I would like to focus on the tremendous impact that nurses have on children and young people's health. Sadly, not every family can take their newborn baby straight home from hospital. One in 10 babies born in Scotland will be admitted to a neonatal unit. Neonatal nurses deliver very technically skilled care and support families through unimaginably stressful experiences. Unfortunately, recent surveys led by Bliss show that too many neonatal nurses are not getting the protected time they need for training and professional development. We should have comprehensive standards for becoming qualified in specialty and developing further in specialised clinical practice areas, but we must ensure that nurses have real opportunities to develop their skills and good staffing ratios are key to that. As our children grow older and move into education, school nurses provide child-centred primary care. They can play a key role in tackling health inequalities in childhood. School nurses are trusted. They are well placed to help schools and families with income maximisation advice and provide universal, non-stigmatising mental health support. The Government had indicated that school nurses would start to take on a refocused role this year or in 2018, working more with children who have additional support needs with young carers and looked after children. I hope that the minister can update us on the progress of those plans. Strengthening preventative health care in schools is essential because we are seeing real increases in the number of children and young people with mental health problems or who need intensive emotional support. Nurses make up over 40 per cent of the total CAMHS workforce and demands on the sector are intense. The Royal College of Nursing has been calling for continued additional investment in CAMHS to enhance early intervention and preventative work and ensure a well-trained, well-supported workforce. Nurses working in our communities are at the very centre of early intervention. I support the expansion of the Family Nurse Partnership, an important preventative health programme, giving younger first-time mothers additional support during pregnancy and through their baby's early years. Evaluations show that this approach improves antenatal health, promotes strong attachment and leads to better health and developmental outcomes for children. That is all because of the therapeutic relationship between specialist nurses and new parents. Making this focus support available to more parents aged up to 24 is a good step forward. The key relationship between nurses and patients is the heart of our health service. I am proud to celebrate it today and to ensure that it is at the centre of our health and social care system in the future. We know that there are real challenges in recruitment and retention in Scotland and we must do more to provide more training opportunities in remote and rural areas to attract new entrants to the profession a bit later in life, too. Due to demographic changes, the role that nurses play supporting the elderly and vulnerable will change, too. We know that a high level of nursing posts are vacant in our care homes and, as health and social care become more integrated, we must have robust workforce planning to ensure that nurses can support people well in their homes for longer. It is often said that, in this city, we have more statues of animals than women. As the vice convener of the cross-party group on animal welfare, I welcome those statues, but I think that we could do far more. Last year, in this city, a plaque was unveiled commemorating the nurses who died during the world war 1—500 of them. I think that the sacrifice and contribution that nurses have made is often overlooked in the society. I would certainly welcome a campaign to see that recognised with a statue in this city. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First of all, thank you to Emma Harper for providing the opportunity to discuss this important subject. Perhaps, in her motion, the thing that I most noticed was the name Mary Seacole, not someone of whom I had heard anything in my life whatsoever. The opportunity to go and investigate who she was and what she did with her life is one that I am very much welcomed. Like everyone else, of course, I have a few nurses in my family. My father-in-law, my citizen-in-law, my second-in-law, my second-in-law, both trained in the Middle East in the 1950s, my aunt Stuart, another Stuart Stevenson, and her sister Daisy, who registered as nurses in Bradford in 1925, my niece Susan, who is now a transplant co-ordinator in Queensland, Australia and, of course, my sister, Mary. Perhaps most critically, from my point of view, my own five months working as a nurse in 1964 in Strifedon's psychiatric hospital. If things are a bit difficult now, let me just say that we did 108-hour fortnight, 12 days on, 2 days off, for £6.50 a week. The staffing issues are horrendous. One weekend, when we worked double shifts, there were two of us looking after 32 physically ill psychiatric patients. It would just never happen today, so progress is being made. I think that one of the important things that we should think about nurses today and give them support for is that the nurses today are highly trained, they have skills and knowledge that, when I was a nurse in 1964 and all my antecedents, ancestors and relatives, definitely did not have. Today, the nurses are trained to a level that is higher and more effective than my father was as a general practitioner, qualifying in 1945 at the comparatively elderly age of 44. My experience of nurses as an individual is universally good. My campaign scar, when a dog bit me in the Falkirk west by-election in 2000—that was a nurse—put the six stitches in my hand and allowed me to return to canvassing for our candidate. Unsuccessfully, I may say that she was not that successful in repairing me, obviously. The five weeks that I spent in hospital in Bangawa some 30 years ago for a condition that I will not share with you, but it was one that none of you will wish to experience, not critically ill but certainly needing nursing. I am grateful to nurses in my personal life. It is worth saying that, in modern times, I have a particular relationship with many of my age group with the McMillan nurses. As one gets to an age, more of one's friends and relatives are reaching the end of their lives. The work that the McMillan nurses do, in particular, in supporting people to end their lives with dignity and comfort in their homes, is absolutely magnificent. The campaign with the motto, nurses a voice to league, sounds to me absolutely spot on. Nurses are important now in primary care in a way that they did not used to be. I would rather see the practice nurse for most of the things that I would wish to go to my GP for, fortunately. I do not even know the name of my GP and that is how infrequent I am. I hope to remain in that position. Some nurses are brave beyond the point of full hardiness. My best man, his mother, was a nurse. She met her husband during the last war in a hospital where he had been taken because he had been badly burned in his tank being blown up. Such was the personal charisma of this nurse that my best man's father proposed to his nurse and married her three weeks after meeting him. The real trick is that he was badly burnt, bandaged from the neck upwards. When she got married to him, she had not even seen his face. That is nursing the bravery of the highest order, but I can tell you that it worked, and it worked extremely well. Ending on a humorous note does not, in any way, diminish the very serious and valuable work that nurses throughout their health service do on behalf of us all. Let us hope that we never have to meet them, but we know that they are there when we need them. I never fail to wonder where you are taking us with your speeches, but I never fall asleep. Mr Lindhurst. Deputy Presiding Officer, it is a great pleasure for me to be speaking today in this member's debate led by Emma Harper, not least because my own mother was a nurse, and I well remember her telling the story of how she became a nurse. At the time, she worked as a young secretary in an architect's firm in Ayr, and one day the senior partner came dancing into her office, singing about her becoming another Florence Nightingale. So, for some reason, he had received the letter confirming her acceptance for nurses training in Glasgow rather than her. It was not too many years later that my aunt Esther followed her big sister Edith into the nursing profession, making it a Murray sister double act. International nurses day, or week in the United States of America and Canada, gives us all the opportunity to reflect on the outstanding work that is done by nurses across the world and to reflect on the particular invaluable abilities that are required of those in the nursing profession—a selfless, caring, patient, understanding and dedicated attitude and approach. Those are just some of the qualities associated with these important workers in our health services. Those are people that we depend upon to help us through some of the toughest times that we experience in life, or for some of those closest to us, those are the people who have been there for them in the most difficult of times. I know that many of us in this chamber have pointed already to examples of nurses in their lives or others who have taken up these roles, and that is exactly what this day encourages us to do. I know that I and my brothers and sisters all benefited from our mother's skills and training as a nurse, and I know that countless others did as well, including in my mother's later life when she worked as a volunteer nurse at children's summer camps. It is important on a day like this to remember the debt that we owe to all of our healthcare professionals who work to help save life and limb, and particularly on this day to remember our nurses. When the Murray sisters worked in the Gorbals in Glasgow about the late 1950s, they could walk alone through the streets night or day in their nurses uniform without any fear of harm. Sadly, it is not in common nowadays to hear stories of a lack of respect being shown not just to our nurses in our hospitals, for example, but even to other essential emergency services. In closing, I would like to say that it is important that we re-emphasise the need for respect for our nurses and the work that they do. Nurses are essential in our society and deserve all our respect. I hope that by celebrating this day, including here in the Scottish Parliament, we can reinforce that message. Thank you very much, Mr Lindhurst. It is always interesting to hear backgrounds of members in here that would not hear otherwise except to members' debates. I now call on morning watch. Close for the Government Minister. Up to seven minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I, too, would like to thank Emma Harper for bringing this very important debate to the chamber today and congratulating her on that and on her and her sister's contribution to the NHS. It is amazing and must be congratulated. As Emma Harper said, nurses make up the largest single profession in our NHS. They are at the heart and care of every single person, young or old. They work not just in our hospitals but in GP practices, home and care homes and in communities across the country, and every person in this chamber has often literally been touched by a nurse and our lives improved because of that encounter. It is my privilege, as a Scottish Minister, to be able to thank each and every nurse across the country for their commitment and professionalism, and on behalf of all the people of Scotland, recognising International Nurses Day, to thank you, the nurses and your unstinting service. We leave due value and appreciate you. The Government is committed to supporting our nurses and ensuring that we have a sustainable workforce who have fulfilling careers and are able to play the fullest part in delivering the health and social care that Scotland needs both today and in the future. Scotland has a long and proud history of supporting our skilled nurses. The first nursing unit to be set up at a British University was opened in 1956 at Edinburgh University by another nursing heroine that has not been mentioned this evening, Elsie Stevenson. Nursing has changed beyond all recognition from the pioneering days of Florence Nightingale and Mary Sicoli. I am really surprised, Presiding Officer, that my general knowledge in this occasion is better than Stuart Stevenson's, because I did know about Mary Sicoli. In fact, when I was passing, when I was on Clapham High Street in London the other month, there was a Mary Sicoli centre, and I was able to tell my daughter who she was, so one up on Stuart Stevenson for once. As Donald Cameron mentioned, the basic commitments of nursing, the basic hygiene in the food and the diet that Florence Nightingale pioneered are very much still to the fore, but the equipment and skill that is required by our professional graduates delivering increasing complex care for a more diverse population in a wide range of setting is certainly challenging. It is more important than ever that we ensure that we have the nursing workforce that is fit for the future with the right numbers, the right skills and the right opportunities and the right support. It is important that we make sure that everyone who wants and has a desire to go and an aptitude and an ability to go into nursing can do so, and that is why our chief nursing officer has commissioned a review of the ways to support and widen access to nursing education and careers, and that is being led by Professor Paul Martin CBE. In terms of supporting nursing, the Scottish Government is delivering a record number of qualified nurses and midwives. Over 3,400 more nursing and midwifery staff are working in our NHS today compared to five years ago, creating a thousand extra training places for nurses and midwives over the course of this Parliament and supporting our student nurses to keep their tuition free, protecting their bursary, as many have mentioned this evening, and creating a million-pound discretionary fund offered as a safety net for those students in greatest needs and transforming nursing roles to maximise nurses' vital and unique role in the health and social care system. Developing a fresh vision for nursing in Scotland, which our chief nursing officer is taking forward in developing and in partnership with nurses across the country, and we are investing £3 million to train an additional 500 advanced nurse practitioners as part of our health and social care system, plus a further £2 million to enhance the skills of general practice nurses in supporting the wider primary care transformation aims. We are committed to enshrining safe staffing in law, which is ground-breaking work and to looking at our nursing and midwifery workload and workforce planning tools and putting that on a statutory footing. It is also important to mention the return to practice scheme because we have a rich resource of former nurses who have dropped from the register for one reason or another. In January 2015, we announced 450,000 funding over three years to reintroduce a national return to practice scheme. I know that my university and constituency of RGU are at the forefront of that. As others have mentioned, in terms of international context, we know about Florence Nightingale's nursing team in the Crimea and Mary Sikola not being allowed to join Florence Nightingale's nursing team, but she went anyway, which showed her determination. It is important, as Clare Hawke mentioned, to mention the number of nurses and clinicians who go to other countries to learn about other ways of working, but also in helping, as many mentioned tonight, for achievement of the development and goals. In Malawi alone, we have supported Scottish NHS clinicians to work with nurses at Malawi's major hospitals to improve their skills, including working with oncology nurses at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantar to develop a multidisciplinary approach to cancer treatment. We have supported a visit to the UK of Malawi and breast care nurses for experience in diagnostics and follow-up clinics. I myself have visited Mount Melange hospital in the south of Malawi, which has a lot of connections with Scotland. As we speak, nurses are working away, saving lives and comforting those in pain and delivering world-leading care in our communities and in our hospitals. In terms of taking forward a recognition of international day, the Scottish Global Health Collaborative seeks to create a framework for volunteering in global health that recognises challenges and constraints, as well as the benefits at home and overseas. It intends to develop guidance that is helpful to both clinical and non-clinical staff for those in training and those trained and their employing organisations. We are in safe hands, not just on international nurses day, but every single day. We thank the nurses and appreciate you.