Presiding Officer, the health crisis has caused an economic crisis on a scale none of us have experienced before.
We have an immediate obligation to protect jobs and help businesses survive.
We have already made available more than £2.3 billion of emergency funding for businesses, and we will continue to provide as much support as we possibly can.
We also welcome the scale of the UK government’s economic interventions.
However, the looming withdrawal of the furlough scheme risks a tsunami of redundancies.
I am therefore calling again today on the UK to follow the lead of countries like France and Germany and extend the Job Retention Scheme for a further 12 months - especially for the sectors hardest hit by COVID and with the longest road to recovery.
Withdrawing this support while otherwise viable businesses are still unable to operate normally - and in full and certain knowledge of the impact it will have - would be unconscionable.
Presiding Officer, It must not happen.
We will take all possible action to support the economy in the short term.
But this Programme also lays foundations for the future.
It establishes a national mission to create new, high-quality, green jobs.
This mission is underpinned by significant investment in our national infrastructure, in securing the economic benefits of the green transition and in fully realising the potential of the tech revolution.
I’ll set out some of those investments and supporting initiatives shortly.
But delivering on this mission - and responding to the immediate employment challenges of COVID - requires a massive focus on upskilling and reskilling the workforce.
I can confirm that central to this, and indeed central to our Programme, is a Youth Guarantee.
A new partnership with Scotland’s employers - backed by £60 million of government investment - to guarantee everyone aged 16-24, a job, a place in education or a place in training.
The Economy Secretary will publish the implementation plan for the Youth Guarantee tomorrow.
But be in no doubt now - this Guarantee signals our absolute determination that youth unemployment will not be a legacy of this pandemic.
We are also earmarking £10 million to help employers recruit and retain apprentices. This will include incentives to take on apprentices who have been made redundant.
And I can announce that, this autumn, we will launch the National Transition Training Fund.
Backed by initial funding of £25 million, it will help up to 10,000 people of all ages retrain for jobs in growth sectors.
We will also double to £20 million our Flexible Workforce Development Fund, which helps employers address skills gaps.
And we will establish a Green Jobs Fund - initially worth £100m - which I will say more about shortly.
Supporting workers to upskill and retrain is essential.
But COVID has brought about fundamental shifts in how people work.
Greater flexibility over working patterns is important for health and wellbeing - and many businesses see benefits to that as well.
At present, our advice is to work from home if possible.
However we expect that when more people do return to offices, some will want to go on working from home, at least for part of the week.
We will therefore set up a new Centre for Workplace Transformation to look at how and where work takes place, and what support employees and businesses need to make this work.
The Programme for Government includes a range of measures to protect key sectors badly affected by the pandemic – for example tourism, creative industries, and our cultural sector.
But investment in infrastructure is at its core.
We will increase our investment in infrastructure year on year, so that by the end of the next Parliament it will be £1.5 billion higher than last year.
This month we will publish our new national infrastructure investment plan - informed by the Infrastructure Commission - setting out the framework for £32 billion of infrastructure investment over the next five years.
Part of that investment will be in digital infrastructure.
The last six months have shown that access to the online world is a modern necessity - every bit as essential as access to electricity.
It is through technology that many of us have continued to work, learn, access life’s essentials and stay in touch with loved ones.
Our £600 million R100 programme will make superfast broadband available to every home and every business across the country.
Scotland remains the only government in the UK to have guaranteed 100% access to superfast broadband.
Work has already started on delivering the central and south of Scotland parts of the programme.
And we have established a voucher scheme – the most generous anywhere in the UK - to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to superfast broadband by the end of 2021, even if the R100 installation is not scheduled to reach them until later, or they are in the hardest to reach areas.
That said Presiding Officer, better infrastructure alone will not secure the benefits of digital technology.
We must also eliminate digital exclusion.
During lockdown, working with the third sector, councils and Scotland’s tech industry, we established Connecting Scotland.
It has provided iPads and Chromebooks – with internet connections - to people on low incomes.
It helps tackle the causes and consequences of poverty.
The initial priority was people shielding or at high risk of severe illness.
The programme is now helping care leavers and low income households with children.
It connects families, improves employment opportunities and provides better access to health care and education.
We intend to significantly expand the programme in the coming year.
I can announce today that, by the end of 2021, Connecting Scotland will provide an electronic device, unlimited data, and two years of digital support and training to 50,000 people who would otherwise be without digital access that the rest of us take for granted.
This is a massive step, and it will help us end the digital divide once and for all.
We have of course previously expressed our ambition for Scotland – not simply to be users of digital technologies – but to lead the way in the design and development of that new technology.
In recent years we have enhanced our international reputation as a centre for technology and data.
However last week’s review by Mark Logan, Skyscanner’s former Chief Operating Officer, highlighted areas for urgent improvement.
His recommendations - if implemented - will be truly transformational.
This Government accepts that challenge.
I can confirm that we intend to implement those recommendations in full.
We will establish a network of tech incubators to mentor and train tech start-ups.
We will create an ecosystem fund to help those start-ups succeed.
We will provide reskilling opportunities for people whose employment has been affected by COVID, so that they can find new jobs in our digital industries.
And we will work directly with the technology sector to deliver the recommendations on education, entrepreneurship and investment.
Scotland already has significant economic and academic strengths in technology and data. Building on these is crucial for our future prosperity and success.
This Programme is a clear signal of our determination to expand these strengths, address our weaknesses, and fully seize the opportunities of the digital age.
Our ambitions for a digital Scotland must go hand in hand with our ambitions for a greener Scotland. Indeed, our obligation to create a greener Scotland.
In just two months, Scotland was due to host COP26.
That gathering has been postponed but the global challenge is more pressing than it has ever been.
COVID is, rightly, the most immediate priority addressed in this Programme.
But we mustn’t forget that the global climate emergency is intensifying, and that it too requires our urgent attention and action.
In the year ahead, we will make further progress towards Scotland becoming, by 2045, a net-zero emitter – ending forever our contribution to climate change.
Last year we set out the first phase of our Green New Deal, based on the principle that decarbonising Scotland is both a moral obligation and a significant economic and social opportunity.
It committed an additional £2 billion of investment over the next parliament, to help achieve the ambitions set out in our Climate Change Plan.
Today, we are setting out details of how £1.6 billion of that will be invested – for example by supporting green jobs, reprioritising road space for public transport use, planting trees, and transforming how we heat our buildings.
Our overall investment in decarbonising heat - which will in itself be more than £1.5 billion over the next parliament - will help us improve energy efficiency, reduce fuel poverty, and ensure that in just over 20 years, heating in Scotland will no longer be a source of greenhouse gas emissions.
This transformation - driven by our responsibility to the planet - will also create and support many jobs across our country.
As indicated earlier, we will also create a £100 million Green Jobs Fund.
Half will be dedicated to helping businesses and organisations grow to significantly increase employment in low carbon sectors.
The other half will help businesses take advantage of public and private investment in the low carbon economy.
We will also help other industries become green.
A £62 million Energy Transition Fund will help oil and gas businesses diversify – something that is especially important for the North East of Scotland.
And I can confirm that we will invest a further £60 million to support the industrial and manufacturing sectors’ transition to net zero.
One of Scotland’s biggest industrial employers - and largest emitters – is, of course, Grangemouth.
I can confirm that we will establish a Grangemouth Future Industry Board to support a Just Transition at that cluster - promoting economic activity while advancing the move to a low-carbon future.
We will also do much more to support the circular economy, and new energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen.
And we will significantly increase peatland restoration – investing at least £250 million over the next decade to help meet our emissions targets, and support jobs in rural and remote parts of our country.
I can also announce that we will launch, later this month, the first round of our Green Investment Portfolio – marketing more than £1 billion of low-carbon projects to investors across the world.
And, of course, the Scottish National Investment Bank will shortly open its door for business.
Capitalised to the tune of £2 billion over the next decade, its primary mission will be to drive the transition to a net zero economy.
The Bank will be a key source of patient finance in the years ahead.
It will support the new technologies, projects and infrastructure that will put Scotland at the very forefront of the transition to net-zero.
I can confirm that the Bank is already in discussions about a range of projects for early investment – including supporting supply chains for zero-emission public transport.
The Scottish National Investment Bank – which in my view, the most important economic development of this Parliament - will be key to creating the low carbon, high technology and highly skilled economy we want and are determined to build in Scotland.
Presiding Officer, we will continue to do all we can to help individuals and businesses adapt, survive and succeed
COVID has presented us with significant challenges. But these are being compounded – completely unnecessarily - by Brexit.
The UK Government’s decision not to seek an extension to the transition period - despite the economic crisis caused by COVID – will cause avoidable harm to many Scottish businesses.
It is an act of self-sabotage which we simply do not understand, but must nevertheless respond to.
At the same time, we also face restrictions on our ability to protect key sectors, as a result of the UK’s plans to create a so-called internal market that undermines this parliament and risks lowering standards.
Nevertheless, Brexit demands that we work in partnership with business, the third and public sectors, to make sure Scotland remains an attractive location for inward investment.
I can therefore announce today that we will publish, before the end of this year - as an accompaniment to our Export Strategy - a new Inward Investment Plan with the express aim of creating 100,000 high quality jobs over the next decade.
Presiding Officer, Brexit – and the way in which it is being implemented – immeasurably strengthens the case for Scotland becoming an independent country, with the ability to shape our own destiny and contribute positively to Europe and the world.
If this was a programme for government in an independent Scotland, it wouldn’t have to contemplate the damage of Brexit. Instead it could set out even more far reaching plans. Plans for: an immediate extension of the Job Retention Scheme - not a plea for another government to do so the greater use of borrowing powers to further stimulate our economy transformation of our national grid to support faster development of renewables a migration system that welcomes talent at all levels and supports people to make Scotland their home a Universal Basic Income and a social security system geared wholly, not just partially, to lifting households out of poverty.
That is why, before the end of this Parliament, we will publish a draft Bill, setting out the proposed terms and timing of an independence referendum, as well as the proposed question that people will be asked in that referendum.
And then at next year’s election, we will make the case for Scotland to become an independent country, and seek a clear endorsement of Scotland’s right to choose our own future.
Presiding officer, the rainbows that appeared in windows across Scotland earlier this year were an expression of hope in the face of adversity. They were also a tribute to the dedication of our health and care workers.
We owe each and every one of them an enormous debt of gratitude, and that must be reflected in how we value and reward them.
We are now in the final year of the three year NHS Agenda for Change pay deal.
We are already working with trade unions to agree the negotiation of a new pay award for 2021/22.
As part of this we are considering options to recognise the enormous contribution of staff during the pandemic.
We also acknowledge the impact of COVID on the mental health of many frontline workers and will establish a mental health network, including a new Workforce Specialist Service, to provide confidential assessment and treatment for those working in the NHS.
COVID has reminded us how important it is to ensure the safety of patients.
We will continue to support the work of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme.
And, in response to the Baroness Cumberlege review, commissioned as a result of concerns about mesh implants, I can announce today that we will also establish a Patient Safety Commissioner.
The Health Secretary will set out more details next week.
Our immediate priority is the remobilisation of the NHS - but we will also reform access to services in light of the COVID experience, and expand the use of technology.
Work to restart services paused because of COVID - and to tackle the backlog of procedures - is already underway.
We are also expanding elective capacity through the National Elective Centre programme.
The first of our new centres for elective surgery will open next month at the Golden Jubilee Hospital.
Construction will start shortly on the Highland Centre, and next year it will start on new centres in Grampian and Livingston and on the second phase of the Golden Jubilee.
A new National Cancer Recovery Plan will be published in the autumn to drive forward recovery and improvement of these vital services, and we will prioritise prompt detection of cancers through Early Diagnostic Centres.
Crucially, in the months ahead we will build on the rapid expansion of digital access to care that was achieved in response to COVID.
Early on in the pandemic, we quickly upscaled the use of the ‘Near Me’ video consultation service.
In the week before that started, just over 300 video consultations took place across our NHS. In the last week of June, the number was 17,000. Patient satisfaction with the service was also high.
That shows how quickly progress can be made.
So while we recognise that video consultations will not be appropriate for every patient or situation, I can confirm that we intend to move to the position where ‘Near Me’ is the default option for patient consultations.
We also intend to develop the use of ‘Near Me’ in social care.
Accident & Emergency Services were also transformed during COVID, and we will learn from that experience too.
A new 24/7 service operated by NHS 24, will help patients not in need of immediate emergency care, to access clinical assessments by phone or online before attending an A&E department.
We will also support the Pharmacy First initiative, which allows common ailments to be treated by community pharmacists.
This is part of a wider set of reforms to community health services.
Our aim is to ensure that multidisciplinary teams, in a network of Community Treatment and Care Facilities like the one I visited yesterday at Sighthill, provide as much care and treatment as possible in communities and close to home.
COVID has undoubtedly highlighted and exacerbated health inequalities.
So we will promote healthier and more active lifestyles for all.
We will invest £500 million over the next five years to support active travel.
This will will help local authorities develop new walkways, reallocate road space, and increase access to bikes.
We will also implement low emission zones in our four biggest cities to improve air quality. The first of these has already been established in Glasgow, and the others will be operational by early 2022.
We will also work to encourage healthier eating, and take forward plans to tackle obesity and support healthy weight.
And we will continue to tackle the harms caused by alcohol and tobacco.
We will also deliver on the key recommendations of the Drug Deaths Taskforce – for example, by tackling the stigma that too often prevents people seeking treatment and funding vital research into drugs deaths in Scotland.
We have an immediate obligation to protect jobs and help businesses survive.
We have already made available more than £2.3 billion of emergency funding for businesses, and we will continue to provide as much support as we possibly can.
We also welcome the scale of the UK government’s economic interventions.
However, the looming withdrawal of the furlough scheme risks a tsunami of redundancies.
I am therefore calling again today on the UK to follow the lead of countries like France and Germany and extend the Job Retention Scheme for a further 12 months - especially for the sectors hardest hit by COVID and with the longest road to recovery.
Withdrawing this support while otherwise viable businesses are still unable to operate normally - and in full and certain knowledge of the impact it will have - would be unconscionable.
Presiding Officer, It must not happen.
We will take all possible action to support the economy in the short term.
But this Programme also lays foundations for the future.
It establishes a national mission to create new, high-quality, green jobs.
This mission is underpinned by significant investment in our national infrastructure, in securing the economic benefits of the green transition and in fully realising the potential of the tech revolution.
I’ll set out some of those investments and supporting initiatives shortly.
But delivering on this mission - and responding to the immediate employment challenges of COVID - requires a massive focus on upskilling and reskilling the workforce.
I can confirm that central to this, and indeed central to our Programme, is a Youth Guarantee.
A new partnership with Scotland’s employers - backed by £60 million of government investment - to guarantee everyone aged 16-24, a job, a place in education or a place in training.
The Economy Secretary will publish the implementation plan for the Youth Guarantee tomorrow.
But be in no doubt now - this Guarantee signals our absolute determination that youth unemployment will not be a legacy of this pandemic.
We are also earmarking £10 million to help employers recruit and retain apprentices. This will include incentives to take on apprentices who have been made redundant.
And I can announce that, this autumn, we will launch the National Transition Training Fund.
Backed by initial funding of £25 million, it will help up to 10,000 people of all ages retrain for jobs in growth sectors.
We will also double to £20 million our Flexible Workforce Development Fund, which helps employers address skills gaps.
And we will establish a Green Jobs Fund - initially worth £100m - which I will say more about shortly.
Supporting workers to upskill and retrain is essential.
But COVID has brought about fundamental shifts in how people work.
Greater flexibility over working patterns is important for health and wellbeing - and many businesses see benefits to that as well.
At present, our advice is to work from home if possible.
However we expect that when more people do return to offices, some will want to go on working from home, at least for part of the week.
We will therefore set up a new Centre for Workplace Transformation to look at how and where work takes place, and what support employees and businesses need to make this work.
The Programme for Government includes a range of measures to protect key sectors badly affected by the pandemic – for example tourism, creative industries, and our cultural sector.
But investment in infrastructure is at its core.
We will increase our investment in infrastructure year on year, so that by the end of the next Parliament it will be £1.5 billion higher than last year.
This month we will publish our new national infrastructure investment plan - informed by the Infrastructure Commission - setting out the framework for £32 billion of infrastructure investment over the next five years.
Part of that investment will be in digital infrastructure.
The last six months have shown that access to the online world is a modern necessity - every bit as essential as access to electricity.
It is through technology that many of us have continued to work, learn, access life’s essentials and stay in touch with loved ones.
Our £600 million R100 programme will make superfast broadband available to every home and every business across the country.
Scotland remains the only government in the UK to have guaranteed 100% access to superfast broadband.
Work has already started on delivering the central and south of Scotland parts of the programme.
And we have established a voucher scheme – the most generous anywhere in the UK - to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to superfast broadband by the end of 2021, even if the R100 installation is not scheduled to reach them until later, or they are in the hardest to reach areas.
That said Presiding Officer, better infrastructure alone will not secure the benefits of digital technology.
We must also eliminate digital exclusion.
During lockdown, working with the third sector, councils and Scotland’s tech industry, we established Connecting Scotland.
It has provided iPads and Chromebooks – with internet connections - to people on low incomes.
It helps tackle the causes and consequences of poverty.
The initial priority was people shielding or at high risk of severe illness.
The programme is now helping care leavers and low income households with children.
It connects families, improves employment opportunities and provides better access to health care and education.
We intend to significantly expand the programme in the coming year.
I can announce today that, by the end of 2021, Connecting Scotland will provide an electronic device, unlimited data, and two years of digital support and training to 50,000 people who would otherwise be without digital access that the rest of us take for granted.
This is a massive step, and it will help us end the digital divide once and for all.
We have of course previously expressed our ambition for Scotland – not simply to be users of digital technologies – but to lead the way in the design and development of that new technology.
In recent years we have enhanced our international reputation as a centre for technology and data.
However last week’s review by Mark Logan, Skyscanner’s former Chief Operating Officer, highlighted areas for urgent improvement.
His recommendations - if implemented - will be truly transformational.
This Government accepts that challenge.
I can confirm that we intend to implement those recommendations in full.
We will establish a network of tech incubators to mentor and train tech start-ups.
We will create an ecosystem fund to help those start-ups succeed.
We will provide reskilling opportunities for people whose employment has been affected by COVID, so that they can find new jobs in our digital industries.
And we will work directly with the technology sector to deliver the recommendations on education, entrepreneurship and investment.
Scotland already has significant economic and academic strengths in technology and data. Building on these is crucial for our future prosperity and success.
This Programme is a clear signal of our determination to expand these strengths, address our weaknesses, and fully seize the opportunities of the digital age.
Our ambitions for a digital Scotland must go hand in hand with our ambitions for a greener Scotland. Indeed, our obligation to create a greener Scotland.
In just two months, Scotland was due to host COP26.
That gathering has been postponed but the global challenge is more pressing than it has ever been.
COVID is, rightly, the most immediate priority addressed in this Programme.
But we mustn’t forget that the global climate emergency is intensifying, and that it too requires our urgent attention and action.
In the year ahead, we will make further progress towards Scotland becoming, by 2045, a net-zero emitter – ending forever our contribution to climate change.
Last year we set out the first phase of our Green New Deal, based on the principle that decarbonising Scotland is both a moral obligation and a significant economic and social opportunity.
It committed an additional £2 billion of investment over the next parliament, to help achieve the ambitions set out in our Climate Change Plan.
Today, we are setting out details of how £1.6 billion of that will be invested – for example by supporting green jobs, reprioritising road space for public transport use, planting trees, and transforming how we heat our buildings.
Our overall investment in decarbonising heat - which will in itself be more than £1.5 billion over the next parliament - will help us improve energy efficiency, reduce fuel poverty, and ensure that in just over 20 years, heating in Scotland will no longer be a source of greenhouse gas emissions.
This transformation - driven by our responsibility to the planet - will also create and support many jobs across our country.
As indicated earlier, we will also create a £100 million Green Jobs Fund.
Half will be dedicated to helping businesses and organisations grow to significantly increase employment in low carbon sectors.
The other half will help businesses take advantage of public and private investment in the low carbon economy.
We will also help other industries become green.
A £62 million Energy Transition Fund will help oil and gas businesses diversify – something that is especially important for the North East of Scotland.
And I can confirm that we will invest a further £60 million to support the industrial and manufacturing sectors’ transition to net zero.
One of Scotland’s biggest industrial employers - and largest emitters – is, of course, Grangemouth.
I can confirm that we will establish a Grangemouth Future Industry Board to support a Just Transition at that cluster - promoting economic activity while advancing the move to a low-carbon future.
We will also do much more to support the circular economy, and new energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen.
And we will significantly increase peatland restoration – investing at least £250 million over the next decade to help meet our emissions targets, and support jobs in rural and remote parts of our country.
I can also announce that we will launch, later this month, the first round of our Green Investment Portfolio – marketing more than £1 billion of low-carbon projects to investors across the world.
And, of course, the Scottish National Investment Bank will shortly open its door for business.
Capitalised to the tune of £2 billion over the next decade, its primary mission will be to drive the transition to a net zero economy.
The Bank will be a key source of patient finance in the years ahead.
It will support the new technologies, projects and infrastructure that will put Scotland at the very forefront of the transition to net-zero.
I can confirm that the Bank is already in discussions about a range of projects for early investment – including supporting supply chains for zero-emission public transport.
The Scottish National Investment Bank – which in my view, the most important economic development of this Parliament - will be key to creating the low carbon, high technology and highly skilled economy we want and are determined to build in Scotland.
Presiding Officer, we will continue to do all we can to help individuals and businesses adapt, survive and succeed
COVID has presented us with significant challenges. But these are being compounded – completely unnecessarily - by Brexit.
The UK Government’s decision not to seek an extension to the transition period - despite the economic crisis caused by COVID – will cause avoidable harm to many Scottish businesses.
It is an act of self-sabotage which we simply do not understand, but must nevertheless respond to.
At the same time, we also face restrictions on our ability to protect key sectors, as a result of the UK’s plans to create a so-called internal market that undermines this parliament and risks lowering standards.
Nevertheless, Brexit demands that we work in partnership with business, the third and public sectors, to make sure Scotland remains an attractive location for inward investment.
I can therefore announce today that we will publish, before the end of this year - as an accompaniment to our Export Strategy - a new Inward Investment Plan with the express aim of creating 100,000 high quality jobs over the next decade.
Presiding Officer, Brexit – and the way in which it is being implemented – immeasurably strengthens the case for Scotland becoming an independent country, with the ability to shape our own destiny and contribute positively to Europe and the world.
If this was a programme for government in an independent Scotland, it wouldn’t have to contemplate the damage of Brexit. Instead it could set out even more far reaching plans. Plans for: an immediate extension of the Job Retention Scheme - not a plea for another government to do so the greater use of borrowing powers to further stimulate our economy transformation of our national grid to support faster development of renewables a migration system that welcomes talent at all levels and supports people to make Scotland their home a Universal Basic Income and a social security system geared wholly, not just partially, to lifting households out of poverty.
That is why, before the end of this Parliament, we will publish a draft Bill, setting out the proposed terms and timing of an independence referendum, as well as the proposed question that people will be asked in that referendum.
And then at next year’s election, we will make the case for Scotland to become an independent country, and seek a clear endorsement of Scotland’s right to choose our own future.
Presiding officer, the rainbows that appeared in windows across Scotland earlier this year were an expression of hope in the face of adversity. They were also a tribute to the dedication of our health and care workers.
We owe each and every one of them an enormous debt of gratitude, and that must be reflected in how we value and reward them.
We are now in the final year of the three year NHS Agenda for Change pay deal.
We are already working with trade unions to agree the negotiation of a new pay award for 2021/22.
As part of this we are considering options to recognise the enormous contribution of staff during the pandemic.
We also acknowledge the impact of COVID on the mental health of many frontline workers and will establish a mental health network, including a new Workforce Specialist Service, to provide confidential assessment and treatment for those working in the NHS.
COVID has reminded us how important it is to ensure the safety of patients.
We will continue to support the work of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme.
And, in response to the Baroness Cumberlege review, commissioned as a result of concerns about mesh implants, I can announce today that we will also establish a Patient Safety Commissioner.
The Health Secretary will set out more details next week.
Our immediate priority is the remobilisation of the NHS - but we will also reform access to services in light of the COVID experience, and expand the use of technology.
Work to restart services paused because of COVID - and to tackle the backlog of procedures - is already underway.
We are also expanding elective capacity through the National Elective Centre programme.
The first of our new centres for elective surgery will open next month at the Golden Jubilee Hospital.
Construction will start shortly on the Highland Centre, and next year it will start on new centres in Grampian and Livingston and on the second phase of the Golden Jubilee.
A new National Cancer Recovery Plan will be published in the autumn to drive forward recovery and improvement of these vital services, and we will prioritise prompt detection of cancers through Early Diagnostic Centres.
Crucially, in the months ahead we will build on the rapid expansion of digital access to care that was achieved in response to COVID.
Early on in the pandemic, we quickly upscaled the use of the ‘Near Me’ video consultation service.
In the week before that started, just over 300 video consultations took place across our NHS. In the last week of June, the number was 17,000. Patient satisfaction with the service was also high.
That shows how quickly progress can be made.
So while we recognise that video consultations will not be appropriate for every patient or situation, I can confirm that we intend to move to the position where ‘Near Me’ is the default option for patient consultations.
We also intend to develop the use of ‘Near Me’ in social care.
Accident & Emergency Services were also transformed during COVID, and we will learn from that experience too.
A new 24/7 service operated by NHS 24, will help patients not in need of immediate emergency care, to access clinical assessments by phone or online before attending an A&E department.
We will also support the Pharmacy First initiative, which allows common ailments to be treated by community pharmacists.
This is part of a wider set of reforms to community health services.
Our aim is to ensure that multidisciplinary teams, in a network of Community Treatment and Care Facilities like the one I visited yesterday at Sighthill, provide as much care and treatment as possible in communities and close to home.
COVID has undoubtedly highlighted and exacerbated health inequalities.
So we will promote healthier and more active lifestyles for all.
We will invest £500 million over the next five years to support active travel.
This will will help local authorities develop new walkways, reallocate road space, and increase access to bikes.
We will also implement low emission zones in our four biggest cities to improve air quality. The first of these has already been established in Glasgow, and the others will be operational by early 2022.
We will also work to encourage healthier eating, and take forward plans to tackle obesity and support healthy weight.
And we will continue to tackle the harms caused by alcohol and tobacco.
We will also deliver on the key recommendations of the Drug Deaths Taskforce – for example, by tackling the stigma that too often prevents people seeking treatment and funding vital research into drugs deaths in Scotland.
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