I thank Liam McArthur for securing this important members’ business debate.

Just weeks ago, the First Minister and others joined thousands of people across Scotland in stepping out on to their doorsteps and clapping for our carers and key front-line health workers. Paramedics are, of course, a vital part of the health service in providing an immediate response to accidents and medical emergencies. They are often the first on the scene to assist people who may be badly hurt, severely traumatised or seriously ill. They have the skills and knowledge to assess and manage a whole range of illnesses and injuries, and they often provide care for people in their own homes to help to reduce avoidable hospital admissions. They are a critical and integral part of our health service, but they are chronically short staffed. Sixty-three per cent of ambulance workers believe that their team is understaffed; that figure rises to 67 per cent for paramedics.

If there is any good outcome at all of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has made us value our key workers and NHS staff like never before and inspired a new generation of young people to seek out careers as medical professionals. However, Scotland’s student paramedics are getting a raw deal.

The Scottish Government rightly introduced the nursing and midwifery student bursary, which now stands at £10,000 per year of financial support, none of which is repayable. As Mr McArthur outlined, that allows student nurses and midwives to enter their new career path debt free. However, the Scottish Government will not introduce the same level of support for student paramedics, and that makes no sense.

A quick comparison shows that student paramedics do the same placement hours as student nurses and midwives; that many are unable to take second jobs because of time pressures and, as a result, are forced into living below the poverty line; and that, unlike their nursing and midwifery counterparts, they are not offered a bursary for childcare costs while on placement. The current system is manifestly unfair and unjust, and it leaves student paramedics in Scotland undergoing intensive training with little or no support.

If the Scottish Government is serious about getting a new generation of paramedics into courses and eventually into jobs, which it needs to do to help to plug the gap of 43,000 shifts that the Scottish Ambulance Service says that it has been unable to cover in recent years—Mr McArthur referred to that—it must act now.

Last month, the First Minister told me that the Government was looking into student paramedic funding, but her health secretary could say only that it

“will be considered as part of the Scottish Government’s planned review of the education provided to the Allied Health Professions.”—[

Written Answers

, 2 October 2020; S5W-31895.]

In the answer to a further parliamentary question, she could give me no timetable for the review even to start. That is cold comfort for students and campaigners. A commitment to be considered in a future review with no timescale is not good enough.

The Scottish Government should match the bursary support that is already in place in England and Wales and pay student paramedics, lift those students out of poverty, make the system fairer and encourage more people into that vital profession.