Thank you. That concludes general questions. The next item of business is First Minister's

questions. And at question number one, I call Douglas Ross. Thank you, Mr President. New statistics

released this week revealed that January of this year was the worst month ever for long waits

at Scotland's A&E departments. Almost 9,000 patients waited over half a day for emergency treatment.

We spoke to Kirstean Campbell from Rocheer.

She spent over seven hours in a waiting room at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital

after experiencing

symptoms of a heart attack or blood clot during a visit to Clyde Bank.

To alleviate the pain she was in, Kirstein had to lie on the floor.

She told me, surrounded by vomit and other bodily fluids, because there was no bed available.

So what does Hamza Yusuf have to say to Kirstein and how is he going to fix this problem?

First Minister.

Before I answer Douglas Ross's question, I did want to to just say, on behalf of the Scottish Government

and indeed the party that I will lead, that how sad we were about the tragic news of the loss of Nick Sheridan.

Nick was an extremely talented journalist and author that he will be greatly missed.

Many of us in this chamber will have been questioned by Nick, quite robustly, no doubt, whether it was on BBC Drive Time or in many of the other programmes that he presented.

My thoughts are with his family, his many friends and, indeed, his colleagues will undoubtedly be a very sad time.

In terms of the question that Douglas Ross asks, a very seized question, of course, indeed,

what I would say to Christine Campbell and anybody else that has had to wait too long is, first and

foremost, this government apologises to anybody who has to wait longer than any of us would expect

in relation to A&A treatment, or indeed, when it comes to elective care

or diagnostics. But it is precisely because we are still recovering from that global

...