The First Minister will be well aware of the recent publication of the 2019 Scottish health survey, which identified the scale of poor health in Scotland before the pandemic. Over half of all adults are living with long-term conditions and one fifth of all men have some form of heart disease or diabetes. It is the First Minister concerned that a failure to improve Scotland’s health, especially in disadvantaged areas, has created additional challenges for responding to Covid-19?

There are long-standing and well-known health inequalities in Scotland, as there are in many countries, and we have and have had a number of initiatives to tackle and close those inequalities. There is no doubt that Covid has both underlined, illustrated and exacerbated some of those inequalities.

It certainly says to me that, as we start to come out of the Covid crisis, we must redouble our efforts to deal with the underlying inequalities that exist. Action will need to be taken across a range of fronts, from preventative health measures, which the Parliament has a good record on, through to different ways of providing services in some of our most deprived communities. There is not just an opportunity but a need to do that as we come out of the acute phase of the crisis.