I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important subject. I have a family member who is a paramedic in my region. I congratulate Liam McArthur on bringing the debate to the chamber and associate myself with his comments.

More than ever, NHS and Scottish Ambulance Service employees are on the front line. Their duties require close interaction with the public and in any setting in which they are needed. We have heard in the chamber about many of the sacrifices that front-line healthcare workers have made and our gratitude to them cannot be overstated.

People who have entered the paramedic profession over the past year, on placement, will have found a service operating under very challenging circumstances. The expectations placed on them have been far from normal. The way in which they have adapted to the situation has been incredible and that must be recognised.

The Scottish Government has for some time recognised paramedics as a shortage occupation. There are simply not enough and paramedics have long reported being overstretched. At times, ambulance response levels have not been where I am sure any party in the chamber would want them to be. We hear of particularly poor examples of response times, which understandably cause concern to local residents.

We all hope that if we were faced with an accident or sudden illness an ambulance would not be far away. I recognise that those patients are triaged according to need, but, even in cases that may not be life-threatening, long ambulance waits can be problematic. It may be that an older person is left lying on the floor, unable to get up, or a vulnerable person is waiting in the cold. If there are not enough staff to get there quickly, every extra minute can mean additional suffering for a patient.

Both Liam McArthur and I are Orcadians and I am sure that each of us appreciates the distinct needs of communities such as the islands and the more rural parts of the Highlands that fall within my region. In smaller and more remote places, the challenges of understaffing become more acute. A staff absence or two can mean the difference between having two ambulances running or having a single service. In those situations, the prioritisation of services is sharpened; more difficult choices have to be made.

In some cases, those communities can be more resilient and will band together to get someone to hospital where it is safe to do so, but that is not always an option and it obviously presents additional risks. Therefore, it should be a point of consensus that we need to attract more people into the ambulance service. The differential support that is available when paramedics are compared with nurses and midwives begins to seem difficult to justify.

We have come a long way in terms of the expectations placed on paramedics. In 1964, the Millar report recommended that ambulances, rather than simply being for patient transport, should also be equipped to provide emergency services on board. That led to the introduction of an eight-week course covering first aid and patient care; after a year’s reviewed work, a proficiency certificate was gained.

It was not long until additional duties were assigned, with ambulance staff becoming key first responders. That process has continued at pace and the change, even in relatively recent times, has been considerable. It should be obvious that paramedics are every bit as important to a functioning national health service as hospital-based medical staff.

The Scottish Government has said that that will be reviewed, alongside a wider review of the education and training of the allied health professions. That is a welcome commitment. However, as it does that review, it should keep in mind some of the concerns and individual stories that we have heard from the pay student paramedics campaign.

The campaign has opened up the experience of training, the realities of working shifts on an ambulance as a student, and the sacrifices that many have made to get into that position, and which they are making while they learn. As significantly, it has identified the problems that come with taking on additional work when they are working the same shifts as qualified paramedics and the effects that that has.

I welcome today’s motion and believe that we should all be focusing on how we can better support the education of people in this vital part of our NHS.