I have here a letter received by my constituent in July 2022 from the Scottish National Party Government. It told her that surgery for lower pelvic prolapse should be completed within one year by order of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf. My constituent has now waited for her surgery for eight and a half years.

As a last resort, we spoke to the press about her deeply personal situation. That forced the hand of NHS Tayside, which will now pay for the private surgery. Why should it come to that? My constituent spent eight and a half years telling the most intimate details of her life to journalists. Those were Humza Yousaf’s guarantees. I now have two further cases of women in Tayside who have been waiting years and years for that essential surgery. Does the First Minister know how many women are waiting for treatment for lower pelvic prolapse, and how long they have been waiting for? Is this another Tayside crisis, or are women across Scotland suffering in silence?

I thank Michael Mara for raising that incredibly important issue. Lower pelvic prolapse affects many women up and down the country. Of course, we had challenges with our waiting times pre-pandemic, but there is no doubt that, by any objective measure, the pandemic, which has been the biggest shock that our NHS has ever faced in its almost 75-year existence, has had a significant impact.

We are focused on trying to assist people who have been waiting the longest, so the focus has been on the two-year waits. The number of out-patients who have been waiting for more than two years has declined, dropped or reduced by more than 50 per cent since September and by more than 60 per cent since June last year. The number of those waiting for more than two years for in-patient day cases was down by 28 per cent in six months, and 18 out of 30 specialties had fewer than 10 patients waiting for more than two years—so we are making progress.

I am more than happy for Michael Marra to forward information about the specific cases that he has mentioned to me or the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care. We will seek to do anything that we can to assist.