Chamber and committees

Foysol Choudhury is right. Although the Scottish Government has provided national guidance on the continued responsibility to provide education while a child or young person is unable to attend school due to ill health, decisions about the fees to be charged for hospital education services are a matter for local authorities and NHS boards to consider, along with independent schools, as appropriate.

As I have just said in response to Mr Hoy, I am very happy to work with Ms Gilruth from a health perspective to ensure that we find a solution to the situation.

As I said in my earlier answer, I recognise that there are issues in Dumfries and Galloway, and the Government is currently working closely with the health board on them. The situation that Mr Smyth describes is occurring not just within Scotland but across the four nations of the United Kingdom. I have been working closely with my counterparts and with the directors of dentistry across each of those nations to ensure that we can reach a four-country solution. We need to improve the pipeline of dentists coming into the country and ensure that those who are in Scotland after training in other countries have the right UK training to allow them to step up to become dentists here. In line with this year’s programme for government, we have increased dentistry funding by 15 per cent, which is the highest-ever proportional increase for the sector. We are also working closely with rural boards to ensure that specific payments that are intended to encourage dentists to move to rural and island locations are more targeted.

The Scottish Government’s operational improvement plan sets out a package of actions to improve the NHS dental workforce now and into the future, in Dumfries and Galloway and across Scotland. As I have said, it is being supported by additional funding in 2025-26. Alongside that, we are working with NHS boards to refine the financial incentives that are in place to support dentists in moving to work in rural areas, thus supporting sustainable access across Scotland.

I would like to report—if I can find this in my notes—that Public Health Scotland statistics published in May show that more than 4.2 million courses of treatment were delivered to patients in the 2024-25 financial year—

I thank Miles Briggs for bringing that important issue to the chamber. Clearly, we need a separation between adult and paediatric services. To that end, in September 2021, we launched “Collaborative and Compassionate Cancer Care: The Cancer Strategy for Children and Young People in Scotland 2021-2026”. The strategy emphasises the Scottish Government’s commitment to improving services nationally and supporting a consistent approach to care and treatment across the country. The established managed service network for children and young people with cancer, which is a dedicated network of cancer specialists, will continue to support children and young people with cancer and to deliver on that strategy.

A report published by the University of Strathclyde in February 2024 found that the services are achieving what they set out to do, which is to find cancer, while delivering at speed a high standard of quality care, and that the overall median time from RCDS referral to diagnosis was 14 days.

To date, we have established six successful rapid cancer diagnostic services, significantly reducing the time taken from referral to diagnosis for people with non-specific symptoms of cancer. Our sixth RCDS was launched last month in NHS Forth Valley.

As I have indicated, I recognise that there are issues in Dumfries and Galloway—

In response to Mr Hoy’s follow-up question, I was aware of the situation involving his constituent Lawrence. As I believe that Ms Gilruth said when Mr Hoy previously raised the issue, ultimately, the decision is one for her to take. However, I am very happy to work with her to address the situation from a health perspective.

Rapid cancer diagnostic services provide primary care with access to a fast-track diagnostic pathway for non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer, such as weight loss and fatigue. All RCDSs and non-specific cancer pathways across the UK have similar, clinically agreed criteria for referral.

There are specific and well-established referral guidelines for children and young people as part of the Scottish referral guidelines for suspected cancer, which have recently been clinically reviewed. The updated guidelines will be published in July. That will be supported by the provision of education resources to support primary care to make the most appropriate referral to the most appropriate pathway.

To put the Tobacco and Vapes Bill in context, around 9,000 people a year die from tobacco-related illnesses in Scotland. Each one of those people is a loved one—a family member—whose life has been shortened through tobacco addiction.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is about preventing young people from becoming hooked on tobacco by keeping them from starting to use tobacco and creating a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034. Scotland has a range of world-leading tobacco control measures. We were the first country to introduce a ban on smoking in indoor public places, in March 2006.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the relevant provisions of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, introduced in the House of Commons on 5 November 2024, and subsequently amended relating to age verification in relation to tobacco and vaping products etc, so far as these matters fall within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and alter the executive competence of the Scottish Ministers, should be considered by the UK Parliament.