Rwy'n amlwg, mae'n bwysig iawn o'r Daugiau busnes yn 9990, i bwysig iawn o'r Prifysig Greum Ni na chi'n ddoch i'r cérd y bwrdd, yn Gwyl Gît Work, yn lwybwynt yn 20 yng Nghyrgrifennu ac yn duion o bwysig iawn, ddefnyddu ichi'r dddorol yn gwneud o ddangosiedig ddim yn bwysig iawn. Mae ddych yn gael yn gwybod a fyddfa feddwl, a'i ddim yn gwybod i bwysig iawn, bobl yn ddoch i'r ddweud i feddwl i merbyngu sydd yn fwybwynt sy'n gwybod. I'm not going to mention point of order. It's a privilege to lead this debate and I thank all members who signed the motion to allow it to proceed. Hospital is a scary enough place for adults and for children more so and for the parents and carers, very stressful and indeed upsetting. So the philosophy behind ambulatory pediatrics, which is a bit of a mouthful, is that children should not be admitted to hospital unless absolutely necessary and as much as possible care should be arranged in their own homes. I might add that this is perhaps especially important in rural areas with long distances to a hospital local or indeed a hospital outwith the area with remoteness and limited public transport. I have no doubt that this process helps with the entire experience, indeed the treatment and healing and recovery process for the children. Adult services indeed have since built similar models on seeing the success of the paediatric ambulatory units. So tonight I am pleased to congratulate NHS Borders paediatric ambulatory care unit, which has recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. The unit is based at Borders General Hospital, no locally as the BGH, in Melrose. I understand that the ambulatory care unit is a fundamental part of a wider innovation of children's healthcare at NHS Borders, which also includes social care, with a focus on keeping children at home and, as I say, avoiding time in hospital where possible. As I stated, it was set up on 20 May 2003 to allow the children to receive treatment and return home, rather than having to be admitted to a ward, and that, over the past 20 years, thousands of children have attended the unit to have a range of assessments, procedures, investigations and treatments. Located in ward 15 of the BGH, the unit, named quotes only for the day, closed quotes, was set up to provide daycare for children who require such things as blood tests, medical assessments and allergy testing.  They also do BCG immunisation clinics at the unit. The service, importantly, separates inpatient and outpatient services. Only for the day, it also provides a friendly, relaxed environment for the children. The nurses can dedicate their time to caring for them, and they build up relationships with the children and their families, again, all helping the healing process. Of course, that means less time waiting for treatment and less anxiety, as I have said already, for everyone. The success of the unit pays credit to the paediatric nursing team for the commitment, quality of care and, indeed, innovation in developing the service, and contributing to a better experience for children and families, who, as I say, have been able to avoid being admitted to hospital thanks to the unit. Indeed, former patients and parents have shared their thanks to the unit. I will refer to one mum whose daughter was the first child diagnosed with a nut allergy at the unit, and that girl has just celebrated her 24th birthday. As I have said, adult services have built similar models because of the success of the unit. However, I want to end on a quote from Dr Andrew Duncan, consultant paediatrician and associate director of medical education at NHS Borders, who said, Over the last 20 years, the backbone of the service has been our amazing paediatric nursing team. They have shown huge amounts of flexibility in the imagination and development of the service. New skills have been developed in intervention blood tests, psychological support and undertaking specific procedures such as specialist immunisations and accessing medical devices. This has meant that many children have been able to be treated locally rather than travelling out with the borders. We all know that staying at home makes a huge difference to the lives of children and families, and we are proud to have provided the service for the past 20 years. My congratulations again to all on the team to NHS Borders and the BGH on the service, and I look forward to hearing contributions from other members to see if that is reflected in other parts of Scotland. I thank Christine Grahame for bringing forward this important debate, which recognises the work of NHS Borders paediatric ambulatory care unit following its 20th anniversary in May, and I join in celebrating those achievements. Over the past 20 years, the care unit, the specialist team of nurses, has provided blood tests, medical assessments and allergy tests, as Christine Grahame has said. They have supported thousands of children in the comfort of an outpatient setting. That means fewer children being admitted into hospital for treatment or travelling to be treated in other parts of the country. For children and their families, the reassurance that that provides is a familiar setting and results in less stress. The unit has also helped to free up bed space at the BGH hospital across local services, offering peace of mind for children and their parents. The team of paediatric nurses has developed skills, including specialist immunisations and the use of medical devices. They have also, as Christine Grahame alluded to, offered psychological support to children and parents across the Scottish borders. The staff deserve our praise, our recognition and our thanks for their work, and I thank them hugely for that. I also want to take this opportunity to address some of the pressures that health services in the borders are currently facing. Having visited the BGH last week, it is clear that the present SNP Green Government has not yet delivered a meaningful NHS recovery plan. During the visit, I learned about the severe pressures being felt across the service, and there is simply no capacity to flex as this winter approaches. Problems seen in A&E, through the wards and into the step-down borders view interim care facility, I will take the intervention from Christine Grahame. Can I just say to the member that it is very unfortunate that you are taking this opportunity to attack the health service, rather than just for once to congratulate the unit at the BGH in something that it is delivering? You were doing so well until then, but you have disappointed me entirely. As were you, Ms Grahame, but talking through the chair, please. I thank Christine Grahame for her suitable justizement. I am sure that, on representing borders, we can continue to clash in future. However, I want to take this opportunity to address some concerns that were raised with me directly by senior NHS managers, including the chair of the health board, whilst I visited the hospital last week. Problems seen in A&E, through the wards and into the step-down borders view interim care facility reflect the very real pressures that our local health service is facing, particularly in social care and care at home. Many hospital patients who are ready to be discharged are being forced to wait several weeks, and sometimes, sadly, months, for care packages to be discharged from hospital. At the time of my visit, sadly, 80 out of 310 beds were occupied by patients ready to be discharged, and that was creating bottlenecks throughout the hospital. Despite the huge efforts of staff—and, Ms Grahame, I celebrate the huge efforts of staff—this is still, sadly, resulting in elective surgery appointments being cancelled. Alongside the board chair, Karen Hamilton, I visited the medical assessment unit, and this is supposed to signpost patients to award or another setting within 72 hours. Last week, there were five patients receiving end-of-life care in this unit. As one member of staff said, this is a busy place, this is not a good place for people to die. Deputy Presiding Officer, those patients do deserve better. I have recently also met with GPs from Elston medical practice, and they are increasingly being asked to deliver secondary care in a primary care setting through no fault of NHS staff whatsoever. It is simply because of the capacity in the system. Innovations such as the paediatric ambulatory ward and the health board's hospital at home pilot, which I had the privilege and honour to see in action, are very much to be welcomed. So is the commitment shown by staff. However, as we prepare for this winter, NHS border wards and facilities are already above capacity and there is no room to flex. The hard-working workforce is operating at full capacity, so I hope that the minister is here today will listen to patients, clinicians and the proper resource of the NHS and social care sector in rural areas. I commend staff at NHS borders on their efforts in pediatrics, in the wards, in the operating theatres and throughout the specialist mental health and other services. As winter approaches, I urge ministers to give them the tools and the resources to do the job. Is it not important that a member, taking part in the debate, speaks to the motion before the chamber and does not deviate so far that they are not speaking to the motion? I thank Christine Grahame for her point of order. That is indeed a requirement of understanding orders. However, I did not see any reason to intervene on the member who was referring to the motion at various stages throughout his speech and I call Colin Smyth to be followed by Emma Harper around four minutes, Mr Smyth. Thank you to Christine Grahame for lodging her motion for the debate. I think providing a welcome opportunity to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Pediatric Ambulatory Care Unit at Borders General Hospital, but also a chance in particular to thank all those NHS staff past and present for the outstanding care that they have provided for children across the borders over many years. I am personally immensely proud and grateful for the remarkable contribution that this unit and the wider NHS borders team make every single day to support so many of my constituents and those of other members. More so, no more so, than in these incredibly challenging times. Two decades ago, NHS borders embarked on a journey to enhance healthcare accessibility for the region's children and families. The inception of the unit, known as Christine Grahame has said, only for a day on 20 May 2003, was a testament to the staff's commitment to the wellbeing of our youngest citizens. As we have heard since then, the team working from the unit have treated thousands of children crucially without the need for them to be admitted to a ward, or, also importantly, sometimes to travel with the region for treatment, making a significant contribution to the innovation of children's healthcare within the NHS. As Dr Andrew Duncan, consultant pediatrician and associate director of medical education at NHS borders, said at the time of the 20th anniversary when paying tribute to the pediatric nursing team, new skills have been developed in interventions, blood tests, psychological support and undertaken specific procedures such as specialist immunisations and accessing medical devices. Prior to the unit being set up to provide daycare for such things as medical assessments and allergy testing, children would have to come into hospital to know as ARC and be treated alongside children who had been admitted to the ward as inpatients. With all the anxiety, that can mean for children, but also for their parents. In 2003, the new unit was forward thinking and 20 years on it continues to play a hugely important role in the care of borderers, but also in influence of other such initiatives across the rest of Scotland. However, it does so at a time that our NHS is facing its biggest challenge in its 75-year history, and no more so than the care of children in the borders. For all the positive achievements of the unit, we still have the challenge of the average wait time for pediatric surgery outpatients in the borders running currently at an average of 74 weeks. Child and adolescent mental health service waiting times in the borders mean that currently only 31 per cent of young people are being seen within 18 weeks. Fallen shot of the Government's legal... I'll take an intervention on that. Emma Harper I thank Colin Smyth for taking an intervention. Would you welcome the fact that the pediatric ambulatory care nurses are mental health first aid trained because it can be quite anxiety-provoking and it can also help to deal with some young people that are having mental health challenges? I know that we're the start of a new term, but can I remind the chamber that all comments should be through the chair? Colin Smyth Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. I do very much welcome that fact, but we do have a challenge that, at the moment, the Government's legal target is 90 per cent of those young people being seen within 18 weeks, and at the moment, Scottish Borders is currently running that 31 per cent. I know that there's a lot of work taking place to tackle that, particularly the longest waiting times, but we do have a lot of progress to make because these are not just statistics of their children, their families, dealing with anxiety and uncertainty that comes with those prolonged waiting times. Presiding Officer, are NHS staff in the borders and across the country are working tirelessly to deliver the best possible standard of care, but we really do need to redouble our efforts to make sure that they have the resources to do so. Too many, including children, are still waiting too long, and two years from the publication of the Scottish Government's recovery plan, those waiting times are not going down the way they need to. The hard work, the professionalism of our NHS staff is inspiring, but let's give them the resources and the support that they need to provide the high-quality care that our children, families and communities, right across the borders and across Scotland, deserve. The Pediatric Ambulatory Care Unit is a shining example of that high-quality care and of the NHS values that all of us are proud of—compassion, accessibility, equality and innovation. It's leading the way, not just in children's healthcare but also inspiring changes in the way we deliver adult healthcare as well. Presiding Officer, I'm very happy 20th Anniversary to the Pediatric Ambulatory Care Unit at Borders General Hospital. I wish all those involved many more decades of the excellence and the compassionate care that they provide every single day, and for which we are all immensely grateful. Presiding Officer, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and congratulate my friend and colleague Christine Grahame MSP on securing it. What an excellent contribution the member made also speaking to her motion. I too want to start by thanking all of the staff at NHS Borders for the work that they do every day, but in relation to today's debate, I want to pay particular thanks to those staff working in the Pediatric Ambulatory Care Unit at Borders General Hospital. As a registered nurse myself, I have experience in adult ambulatory care and a wee bit of pediatrics as well, and I know the vital importance of ambulatory care. It bridges the gap between the hospital and community children's services. It concentrates on areas such as accident and emergency and outpatients. It works at improving communication with families and the primary healthcare team, and it importantly works with the home care nursing services to develop new services such as day units. Presiding Officer, the unit at Borders General is a fundamental part of the wider innovation of children's healthcare at NHS Borders with a focus on keeping children at home and avoiding time in hospital where possible. The Pediatric Ambulatory Care Unit was set up 20 years ago on May 2003, as has been described, and it is to allow children to receive their treatment and go home rather than needing to be admitted as a ward inpatient. In the last 20 years, over 8,000 children have attended the ambulatory care unit to have a range of assessments and procedures and investigations and treatments, and that has been described by colleagues as well. Over the past 20 years, as Dr Andrew Duncan describes, he says that the backbone of the service has been our amazing pediatric nursing team. It is worth mentioning that again. They have shown huge amounts of flexibility and imagination and development in the service. We know that new skills have been developed, such as intravenous interventions and blood tests, and psychological support, which I have mentioned in my intervention, because it is really important that we help to support mental health addressing of any young people, whether they come through any service but including the ambulatory care service. The work that is being carried out by the exceptionally dedicated and specialist healthcare professionals has meant that children have been able to have the treatment locally rather than travelling outside of the Borders. We know that staying at home makes a huge difference to the lives of children, but the families and the team, both past and present at NHS Borders, should be absolutely proud of the service that they have created. Ambulatory Periodics is an exciting and challenging area to be involved in, with much scope for development. I was interested to read that, over the past 10 years, there has been a 30 per cent increase in the number of under-five-year-olds attending emergency departments. That compares to an increase of 15 per cent for all children and young people seeking urgent care over the same time period. Those figures are due to a change in demographics and a change in carer behaviour, and for several reasons. I was swithering about whether to include more detail about the issues of attendance at emergency departments, but I will mention that the lack of periodic experience in primary care and the assessment of risk play a role in increasing referral rates to secondary care services. That demonstrates why periodic units, like the one in the Borders General, are so important. In periodics, investment in a virtual hospital care model is increasing as acute settings struggle to manage the pressures of the increase in demand. I would like to ask the minister whether learning can be taken from the Borders unit and replicated across other health boards to alleviate pressure on boards and help to improve outcomes for children and young people. In conclusion, I put my thanks on record to all the staff at NHS Borders for leading the way in the pediatric ambulatory care unit and congratulate Christine Grahame on securing the debate. I thank Christine Grahame for bringing this motion to the chamber today. As I begin my remarks on behalf of Scottish Labour, the health team and an MSP for the region, I congratulate NHS Borders on the 20th anniversary of its pediatric ambulatory care unit, based at Borders General Hospital in Melrose that we have all been talking about this evening. There are a few things more important than the health and wellbeing of our children and that there remains such specialist and focused provision in the Borders today is a real positive and shows the importance we can place on dedicated pediatric care. Looking at the NHS Borders description of the word, it is heartening to learn that amongst the key aims of the unit includes a desire to reduce waiting times for children and have nurses in place with a specific responsibility to care for them whilst visiting the Borders. As many others have said, that will be greatly received by the young people but also by their families. Importantly, this service remains in the Borders, in a time when so many people have to leave the Borders for work and other services, this NHS provision remains firmly within the Borders and services the people of that area. As an MSP for south of Scotland, I cannot count the number of occasions I have heard residents having to travel to Glasgow or Lanarkshire or Edinburgh to receive services. It is undoubtedly the case that the provision of services, including health services, is severely limited at times in more rural areas, so this service should be welcomed and long may it continue in the Borders. As the motion states, it is apt that we take time in this debate to pay credit to pediatric nursing teams in the Borders and across the country. The service of care that they provide, the compassion, the show and the contribution that they make to the operations of our NHS is rightly recognised in the motion and has been recognised by all members in the debate. However, it would be remiss of me and it would be remiss of Opposition not to mention that there are problems within the NHS and that we should consider them. We did learn this morning about staggering waiting lists for people, well over one in seven Scots, with thousands of children and young people, particularly in CAMHS on long waiting lists. The Government has not yet met the target for CAMHS waiting times for CAMHS. It is important that we discuss those points when we have the opportunity. However, I accept that we are here to commend the work of the Pediatric Ambulatory Care Service and I once again do that. I, like my colleague Emma Harper, thought the words from the medical director were wonderful when he put forward the point that he thought the nursing services had done so well over the 20 years in this service. In concluding, it is right that we have come together to debate this important unit, but I do think that we have a responsibility in the chamber to ask a minister when they are here to talk to us about the ways in which we can improve services. I hope that the minister tonight will congratulate the service but will outline some of the issues that have to be addressed and how the Government, particularly on this day with the programme for government, will do that. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me start by passing on my congratulations to NHS Borders on the 20th anniversary of its paediatric ambulatory care unit and by thanking Christine Graham for bringing this important anniversary to the attention of the Parliament. The innovation that has been shown by NHS Borders and children's healthcare locally is something that they should be very proud of. The health and wellbeing of our children is of the utmost importance and it is our aspiration that Scotland should be the best place in the world to grow up. Supporting and maintaining the health and wellbeing of Scotland's children will in turn make for a happier, healthier, more prosperous future adult population. At a more fundamental level, we have an obligation to protect, to nurture and to care for our next generation. Put simply, we have to get it right for every child. It is in this context that our child health surveillance programme and network of children's nurses have become vitally important. I am proud to say that each young family in Scotland is entitled to the support of a health visiting service between from pre-birth to a child's starting school. Our universal health visiting pathway provides families with a series of 11 home visits as a minimum standard. That sequence of visits best ensures that the health and development of Scotland's children can be well monitored and promoted. While our health visiting service is universal, we also offer young mums the option of accessing more intensive support through the family nurse partnership. That helps to guarantee flexibility of approach and the provision of targeted care to children and families who need it most. All of our children are able to access the support of a school nurse as they move through education between 5 and 18. Our school nursing service is designed to focus support around priority areas that are most likely to influence health and wellbeing in later life. That approach ensures that school nurses can focus on prevention and early intervention, helping children to navigate health and wellbeing concerns and go on to drive into adulthood. Whilst all of those services provide significant benefits, it is really important that they do not operate in isolation. Our getting it right for every child framework provides the foundation upon which complementary children services can integrate effectively. GERFEC ultimately offers fertile ground for the development of initiatives just like the paediatric ambulatory care unit in NHS borders. As we have heard today, the ambulatory care unit is an innovation that puts the needs of children absolutely at the heart of care and ensures that, as far as possible, services are tailored to the individual. That is exactly what we would like to see all over Scotland. We are more than happy to work within NHS borders to examine what it is that it is doing and how much can be rolled out all over Scotland. Of course, it has already inspired a service of hospital at home, which we have debated in this Parliament, so that our further investment of £3.6 million into hospital at home provides acute-level care at home and avoids hospital admissions for adults, supporting more than 11,000 people in the last year. I simply ask her to look again at hospital at home and the home first programme, which is especially important in rural areas. Will she consider providing additional funding for our councils and health board areas? There are rural areas, because the cost of delivering those services in those areas is significantly higher. I would not dream on the hoof in the chamber of interfering with the NRAC formula, which I already understand accounts for the extra burden that rural authorities have, but I agree with you absolutely that it is more important than ever in rural areas that those services are delivered closer to home. We remain absolutely focused on ensuring that the health service recovers from the greatest challenge in its history, the pandemic. I recognise that challenges remain and that there are still unacceptable weights in some specialties, but we are committed to delivering sustained improvements and year-on-year reductions through service redesign and enhancing regional and national working. We have provided record funding, with more than £19 billion in the 2023-2014 budget, supporting recovery and reform to secure sustainable public services. The range of reforms across primary and acute services will not only help to speed the recovery from the pandemic, but they will also reduce unnecessary demand for services and develop new pathways of care that are better for patients as we face the health challenges of coming years. That includes building and investing in the recruitment and retention of staff. NHS staffing levels are historically high under this Government, with nearly 23 per cent more people in post. We have taken forward measures to help to retain staff and to look after their wellbeing, including the development of a wellbeing hub. We continue long-term investment in healthcare education and funding of record numbers of nursing and midwifery student places. We have also seen a 143.1 per cent increase in the staffing of psychology services since 2007. That demonstrates our commitment to mental health services, which also includes improving access to community mental health and wellbeing support. Through our investment in community mental health services, we are providing local authorities with £15 million per year to fund community-based mental health support for children, young people and their families. 5,093 children and young people started treatment in camps in Scotland in the most recent quarter. That means that the last six quarters have seen each of the six highest figures on record for the number of children starting treatment in camps. I would not for a second deny the challenges that we face and the improvement that we still need to make, but we cannot dismiss or ignore the seismic and continuing impact of the pandemic and what that has meant for the NHS and its workforce. It is therefore disappointing that my colleague Craig Hoy was unable to resist the opportunity to score some political points in this debate. We did not hear him talk up Scotland for being the only part of the UK to have avoided strikes in our NHS. We did not hear him say that our health and social care staff in Scotland are paid more than any of their counterparts in any other parts of the UK, even before today's announcement of £12 per hour from next April for social care staff. We did not hear him mention that we have more staff of all professions per head of population in our NHS and we certainly did not hear that in Scotland we have the best-performing A&E in the UK, not just this week, not just this month, not just this year but for the past eight years. Our NHS is still in recovery. Our NHS all over the UK is in recovery. Every country is facing challenges in terms of improving health as we move through and out of the pandemic, but we must move forward. We must make sure that recovery and reform are not just words and that they are concrete actions that ensure that, like in NHS Borders, we are getting it right for every child and getting it right for everyone. Thank you. Thank you, minister. That concludes the debate and I close this meeting of Parliament.


And here in Tokyo, we announced two new initiatives. The end of the Pacific Economic Framework and the end of the Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Program that can bring India and the United States together with other nations to reflect our vision for a more open, more prosperous, connected, and secure world. Anyhow, the end of the Pacific Economic Framework and the end of the Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Program that can bring India and the United States together and with other nations to reflect our vision for a more open, more secure world. I'm pleased that we've reached agreement for the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to continue its important work in India, supporting vaccine production, clean energy initiatives, and I'm also glad we're renewing the Indo-U.S. vaccine action program. I'm also pleased that we've reached agreement for the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to continue its important work in India, supporting vaccine production, clean energy initiatives, and I'm also pleased that we've reached agreement for the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to continue its important work in India, supporting vaccine production, clean energy initiatives, we've also discussed the ongoing effects of Russia's brutal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine and the effect it has on the entire global world order. And the U.S. and India are going to continue consulting closely on how to mitigate these negative effects. I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation today. Mr. Prime Minister, there's so much that our countries can and will do together, and I'm committed to making a U.S.-India partnership among the closest we have on Earth. Mr. President, it's always a pleasure to meet you, and today we also participate in the very positive and useful Quad Summit. Mr. President, it's always a pleasure to meet you, and today we also participate together in a very positive and useful Quad Summit. The India-America strategic partnership is in the true sense a partnership of trust. Our common interests in defence and other matters and our shared values have indeed strengthened this bond of trust between our two countries. Our people-to-peak relations and our strong economic cooperation makes our partnership even more unique. Our trade and investment relations are also steadily on the rise, but they are still well below potential. I am absolutely confident that with the conclusion of the India-USA Investment Incentive Agreement, we will see complete progress in investment between our two countries. We are also increasing bilateral cooperation in the domain of technology, and even on global issues, we cooperate closely. We both share similar views on the Indo-Pacific and at the bilateral level as well as with like-minded countries, we continue to work to protect our common concerns. The Quad and the IPAF are two important examples of this cooperation, and I believe that our discussions today will give even further speed to this positive momentum. I am absolutely sure that the Indo-US friendship will continue to be a force for good, for global peace and stability, for sustainability of the planet and for human development. Mr. President, will you please find a way to take a stop or stay at some brothel? Let's say hi to India.


What I'll really focus on in my presentation is how do some of these ideas around opportunities for open data in the agriculture sector or the SDGs broadly translate to the local level in terms of implementation in particular the communities that we're trying to impact in the developing world across the globe. And I'll be telling that story a bit from the Jamaican or the Caribbean perspective. So I won't recap this, I mean we've already spoken, Dr. Oteke already spoke about the importance of increasing the amount of food that we produce over the next over the next 30 years. And the idea of food security has already been identified as part of one of the SDGs as critical to development moving forward. And I think the case of data and agriculture has already been made, particularly around open data and agriculture, but I think one of the key questions that we have to ask is, well what is this, how does this translate? Because it's not the process by which an organization opens up data and doesn't necessarily mean that organization is going to become data driven in and of their self and certainly opening up information does not mean that it's going to be accessed by those communities that are most disadvantaged. And that's particularly important in the Jamaican context where the average age for the farming population is actually about 60 years old. Literacy is a big issue, much less digital literacy, which is a whole nother game. And more importantly, how do you create this type of data driven sector in an environment of agriculture, which is predominantly a rural and resource constrained environment? And so you have all of these different pieces that pose a challenge for the idea of data usage and information at a sectoral or economic level for farming populations. And so we've been working with the agencies in Jamaica to think about some of those problems. And this is kind of what it really looks like in context. So in Jamaica agriculture actually employs about 19% of the population and contributes about 9% of GDP. And that translates to about 200,000 registered farmers in the country. But for all of the agencies that are responsible for providing underground extension support to that farming population, there are about 140 extension officers. No, that doesn't scale, right? And unfortunately, I mean, if you've read anything about Jamaican or current dance with the IMF and kind of the development community, our government is not going to have a lot of money to expand the number of persons that are employed in the agricultural sector. And so one extension officer to about 1,500 farmers does not allow them to one, effectively serve those communities and to reach those farmers. But similarly, within the context of this problem, getting information about what's happening in the sector. And so that leads to some significant challenges in terms of data gaps and structural challenges in the Jamaican context. And so what we've said to them is, well, how do we think differently about those problems? And how do we think differently about the services that we provide to that community in a way that can better scale? And so the approach that we've been taking is looking at this sectoral level data partnership because there are a number of different stakeholders and service providers that touch the agricultural community or any different problems across the agricultural community. But none of them individually have the sufficient scale to capture all of the information that is going to be needed to have an effective, informed way of serving the community. And what that data partnership that we're currently working to craft looks like is that persons who are operating in the sector are both consuming shared information resources as well as contributing back to that data commons in a way that it helps us to better achieve that scale. So at the base, we've been working around defining some shared data infrastructure. We've been working with agencies there that does a lot of data collection to effectively build open APIs and standards for creating a data commons around production of information around kind of core farming assets and obviously respecting the privacy of the farming community as well. On top of that, because there's no broad open government program yet in Jamaica, we're working at a kind of a sectoral level around bilateral relations between the government agencies to facilitate that data sharing because right now there's this duplication across different sectors. So we're working at those partnership levels so that agencies are more comfortable sharing information with each other and putting that within this kind of data commons. And on top of that kind of base infrastructure, what we're saying is, all right, well, any new service that is being created for the farming community, whether it is connecting farmers to markets or providing information services to farmers, those services need to be built with these data constraints in mind. And what that means is that one, they're taking information from that data commons but then there's agreement to contribute back information. In a way, every interaction with a farmer becomes an opportunity to update information about that farmer and that should be shared back to the commons in a way that also allows other agencies to better serve that community. And beyond that, working to reach out to persons in the private sector and kind of establish external stakeholders to say, all right, well, this is the work that we're doing around this data partnership. Would you be interested in contributing information as well as a way of engaging persons not just within government but outside of government? And then lastly, kind of enact the spirit of open innovation, trying to catalyze new persons to enter into the agricultural space to create services for the farming community by opening it up to other persons. So thank you very much.


Very often, it's the little things that change your life. And having written a book on habits, I'm a very big fan of tracking little daily habits that can make your life better. Now, in this video, I thought I would share five little wellness habits you can do every day that will make your life a little better and a little bit healthier. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine and author of the health book, Master of the Day. So before we jump into this video, there are two very important links right below the video. The first is for a free guide, which is for daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice right below this video. Habit number one is keeping a little journal of your hunches. Now what does this have to do with wellness?  Right? There's a great book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin Nebecker and he describes women that were both victims of crime and that had avoided crime narrowly, violent crime or dying, where often the experience was preceded by a very clear intuition, a very clear gut overwhelming feeling of danger. And if they escaped, they had trusted the gut feeling. And if they sometimes were victims, they did not trust the gut feeling. So I think that our gut hunches are not only there to protect us, but are there to guide us towards whatever ensures the survival of us as an organism. Now that's also true in terms of health. If you have a gut feeling about maybe I should try eating that or maybe I should get a second opinion. Maybe I should see this doctor. Maybe I should try this, whatever, this therapy. I'm a big believer in trusting that gut feeling and trying those things, because very often they turn out to be true. Not just in your personal life, like date that person and don't date that person or don't marry that person. Or this person and I will become great friends or I should really avoid that person. The second wellness ritual that can make a big difference in your life, in my opinion, is drinking puriti instead of drinking coffee. So I love coffee as much as the next person. The ritual, the aroma, the taste, the association of sitting down with a good cup of coffee to do some work, I love it. But like a lot of people with a sensitive digestive system, I'm very prone to indigestion and acid reflux even if I drink coffee regularly. So the ritual though is something that I think is very beneficial. And a close relative is puriti, and I mean relative in terms of the ritual. So I find that puriti, and you guys should see, I have a recent video on my poor ritual. But puriti is one of those things that has the ritual aspect of drinking coffee. The brewing, the pouring, the sipping, it's a warm beverage. It can be dark and earthy if you have a ripe puriti. Poor has other benefits though. Number one, it's not gonna cause the anxiety or the insomnia necessarily or the potential heart palpitations that can come from coffee. What poor does have is it has probiotic bacteria because very often it is fermented tea. It also has the benefit of you can drink a lot more of it without the associated increase in heart rate and the secretion of the stress hormones that can be very destructive to people's health. And on top of that, the third point is for so many of us today that are experiencing anxiety or depression or sleep problems or issues related to the nervous system. Poor tea is a much better alternative to coffee. So poor tea, one of my absolute favorites. Now the third wellness ritual that can help your life is taking a 10 minute morning walk while thinking about your goals. One of my favorite rituals over the last few years has been first thing in the morning, getting out of bed and just going for a walk outside, literally with my goals on my phone and just reading them. So I think that there's something very powerful about starting your day off thinking about the life that you want. Life that you want can be the healing that you want. It can be finding the person that you want. It can be some other quality in your job or in finding peace or fulfillment that you want. And I think there's something special about priming your morning with a ritual like that that is very, very underrated. Because I find that if every day you're thinking about what you want, there is almost a quasi-mystical ritual that happens. It's almost a kind of shamanic ritual where one part psychology, one part emotion, one part practical habits, and one part leaving it up to the universe if you want to call it that. And I find that my goals are a lot more likely to happen when I do this morning ritual. And I'm already starting my day primed with these are deliberately the things that I want to create in my life specifically. The fourth wellness ritual that can really help you is doing 20 minutes of qigong every day. Now I know breathwork is very trendy these days and qigong you could literally translate as breathwork, qi work. But for many people the morning is a time where there's sort of a buffer of wasted time and just sitting around or watching news or whatever it is. But qigong has the unique benefit of not only being exercise, but also being something like an increased immune system while also not exhausting you. So a benefit of qigong is that even a cancer patient who is exhausted and should not exercise can do qigong several hours a day if they're able and they'll sleep better, they'll have more energy and they'll feel more rested by doing this as opposed to doing a hard workout where you need to recover from and you're going to be exhausted the next day or the next two days. Qigong has the unique benefit of being something that energizes you while also having the cardiovascular benefits of exercise while also improving the immune system and improving resistance to disease. So I think qigong is highly underrated for modern people something that's not hard in terms of physical exertion but has similar benefits as exercise combined with meditation. Now the fifth wellness habit that can really help you is reviewing your inner game daily rituals. I'm a big believer of tracking what you do on a day-to-day basis and seeing the result it has in your life. Like if you know, for example, there are a few things that make you feel the best daily. Maybe it's exercise, maybe it's qigong, maybe it's a cup of coffee, maybe it's walking your dog, maybe it's a dinner with friends every night or hanging out with your kids. What are those daily rituals every day that make you feel the best? I would recommend writing those down on a piece of paper and making sure you do those daily. Some people it's the morning routine, it's the meditation, it's the journaling, it's the gratitudes that make them feel really well. For other people it is exercise and getting their body moving or dancing or a salsa class. And for other people it's solitude or social time, something with people in their community. But I think for so many people, this modern era is almost the era of psychospiritual illness where people struggle with feeling well internally almost more than anything else. And we have a lot of external illness like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, external meaning related to our activity levels and diet. But for so many of us, we're in this era of psychospiritual illness where people don't feel well or feel connected to anything or no one feels like their life has purpose and meaning beyond waking up and just existing. So finding your inner wellness sort of daily rituals I think is underrated. I'm trying to do more of those every single day. So five wellness habits that can make a big difference in your life. Check out those links below this video you guys and I have related videos for you right there.


Hi everybody. This is not a bad turnout for Wednesday morning on Not a Great Deal of Notice. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Scott Ludlam. I've known Julian for about 12-13 years now and we're going to have a little bit of a chat about Julian and surely I'm going to introduce you to the absolute superstars that we've got lined up as this campaign, hopefully draws to the conclusion that we have been desperately hoping for and working for for more than a decade. We are here this morning on beautiful Gadigal country, unceded land, land taken by force from its traditional owners that this sovereignty over this country was never ceded and we're here on a day and on behalf of somebody who hasn't seen this sunlight in more than four years. Here on behalf of an Australian who can't be with us this morning, someone who hasn't seen the sun in more than four years, the entire time I've known Julian Assange, he's been under some form of incarceration, house arrest, ankle bracelets, safe houses, an embassy without light and then four years in a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom in Belmarsh. For the whole time, think of everything that you have done since 2011. All the trips you've taken, trips to the beach, time with family, work, play, just life. Since 2011, he's been under some form of incarceration for telling the truth. I want to thank the organisers for bringing us together this morning and they dubbed the rally journalism is not a crime. Gunning down journalists with helicopter gunships, that's a crime. Torturing people is a crime. Rendering people to black sites and disappearing them without any form of judicial process is a crime. Drone assassinations are a crime. Publishing is not a crime. If you've been involved in this one for any length of time, you'll know that there's a shift. Our no hope is dangerous with this much at stake and for how long we've been at this, but there's a shift. Can you feel it? Things are moving and the reason that they're moving is not by accident, it's not by some arbitrary law of nature. It's because of the work that we have done and people like us have done in every time zone on this planet to get our friend Julian Assange free and along the way to show a wounded belligerent superpower that some principles matter. The truth is important. That publishers and journalists have a vital role to play in any society. And so that shift has come about because of the organising that's been done over more than a decade, including not least by some of the incredible people that we're going to be hearing from shortly. But I just want to maybe put a quick reminder out there. When I say a shift, this is what I mean. Six US Congress people, that's the tip of the iceberg, have written to the president of their own party mostly, which is kind of ironic, but at least they've made the effort. That's a first. That has not happened. That happened. That took work. A lobbying blitz by the largest human rights organisations in the world, Amnesty International Human Rights Watch Reporters Without Borders and many others. That's happening around the world and in the United States. MPs, cross party MPs from Mexico, from Brazil, from the UK have sent joint cross party letters to the United States government. 48 Australian MPs from all parties from all colours of our bizarre political spectrum. And as you'll know, if you look around you at this gorgeous little gathering this morning, that this issue, unlike any I've ever worked on or come across, unites people from very different political traditions. We may not agree with each other on everything, but we know that we agree with each other on this. And that goes from a gathering here, the gatherings in London outside Belmarsh prison, gatherings in front of the Mexican parliament in Brazil in every country on earth, that we can agree on this. Publishing is not a crime. Publishing is not espionage. And Julian Assange should be free. A sign of that shift is the long overdue, the desperately, shamefully overdue bipartisan support from our prime minister and whoever the leader of the opposition is these days saying enough. Enough is enough. Julian, this process has to end. That's the shift. And that's on you. That's because of the work that you have done over such a long period of time. It's safe to say that President Biden is not welcome on these shores until our citizen is home, where he can be reunited with his kids, his wife, his family and his supporters.


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