My office has been inundated with emails and letters from patients across Lothian who are facing a wait of up to 45 weeks just for an initial orthopaedic appointment, before they can even be added to the operations waiting list.

The health secretary assured me repeatedly that improvements would be made by April of this year. Will the First Minister now apologise to my constituents who need hip and knee replacements? Given the orthopaedic crisis that we see across NHS Lothian, what does she suggest that I tell my constituents, who are waiting in pain at the hands of this Scottish National Party Government?

First, I apologise to any patient who waits longer for treatment on the health service than they should do. As Miles Briggs is aware, the health secretary is working hard with local health boards, including NHS Lothian, to reduce waiting times and orthopaedics is a priority area. The health secretary recently announced additional funding to help local health boards to do exactly that—reduce waiting times. According to the most recent statistics, the additional funding that was invested to reduce outpatient waiting times has had an impact, and we obviously want to focus on elective in-patient treatment as well.

If Miles Briggs wants to write to the health secretary with details of individual Constituency cases, I am more than happy to ask the health secretary to look into them in particular. We will continue to take action through investment and reform of our health service to make sure that waiting times come down and patients continue to get the services that they need.