Chamber and committees

The requested information on how many graduate nurses have been employed by NHS Scotland in 2024, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) speciality is not centrally held.

Information on the number of nursing staff joining the NHS broken down by band, NHS board and specialty can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce (phase one) | Turas Data Intelligence (turnover tab)

All Scottish Ministers routinely use electronic boxes (‘e-boxes’) for ministerial business. Cabinet Folders are issued to Cabinet Secretaries on appointment.

Decisions on prescribing medicines are a matter of clinical judgement for the prescribing clinician in consultation with their patient. These should be based on individual clinical need, informed by relevant advice such as that issued by the General Medical Council (GMC) and guidance for the medicine.

The Scottish Government’s Menopause Clinical Reference Group, Chaired by Dr Heather Currie, has discussed the prescribing of testosterone for women in menopause. This group is exploring supplementary guidance for healthcare professionals on prescribing testosterone for loss of libido in menopause, in line with the British Menopause Society and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance.

Social Security Scotland has not been subject to any denial of service (DoS) attacks during the period between 30 June 2023 and 24 July 2024. During that same period, our security mechanisms protected our environment against 345,027 cyber events, the majority of which being external actors scanning our internet facing benefit systems to identify potential weaknesses.

The Scottish Landfill Communities Fund has provided an important source of funding for community and environmental projects across Scotland.

The Scottish Government recognises that the forecast decline in Scottish Landfill Tax revenues, which reflect the policy intent to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill, will reduce the contributions that landfill operators make to the Fund. We are therefore, in partnership with Revenue Scotland and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, carefully considering future arrangements for the Fund.

More broadly, the Scottish Government is committed to supporting local environmental projects through, for example, the growth of our national network of regional Community Climate Action Hubs. These hubs, which are supported by up to £5.5 million of funding in 2024-25, enable local communities to develop place-based approaches to reduce emissions and become more climate resilient.

There are no plans to review the monetary penalties at this time.

It should be noted however that SEPA continues develop relationships with relevant parties with the aim of taking a prevention-based approach, where penalties are viewed as a last resort.

Whilst fixed monetary penalties remain as one available enforcement measure, they are intended for lower-level offending. For more significant offending, SEPA also has the option of variable monetary penalties (with the current limit set at £40k) or it can recommend prosecution in serious cases to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

SEPA collected around £ 4.8m in financial penalties in the financial year 2023-24.

The Scottish Government grant to the University of Glasgow for this purpose funds one PhD studentship and a number of small projects. The projects are currently at different stages, outputs from some of the projects are expected before the end of the year and all are expected to be completed by Spring 2025.

The successful candidate for the PhD studentship took up their post in January 2024 and the projects and PhD studentship are both wholly managed by the University of Glasgow.

As is standard with high quality research, it is anticipated that the findings will be published in relevant peer reviewed journals.

In response to the increasing number of laboratory-confirmed cases of pertussis that have been reported in Scotland as well as other parts of the UK and Europe, the Scottish Government is working closely with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and NHS Maternity Services to raise awareness of the risks of pertussis, particularly to young infants and to promote timely vaccination uptake as well as emphasising the importance of pertussis vaccination during pregnancy to protect newborn infants.

A National Incident Management Team (IMT) was convened by PHS on 23 May to ensure best practice across all Boards, including addressing any issues locally that might cause vaccination to be delayed.

The National Pertussis Incident Management Team continues to meet regularly to consider and review all actions in response to the increase in pertussis cases.

The Chief Midwifery Officer wrote to Maternity Services on 15 May 2024 encouraging midwives to promote the offer of vaccination to pregnant women.

The Chief Medical Officer wrote to Immunisation Coordinators and Directors of Public Health on 27 May 2024 about the importance of timely vaccination of infants and young children. He also wrote to Medical Directors and health professionals on 30 May 2024 to encourage all health care staff in priority groups working with infants and pregnant women to keep up to date with their own pertussis vaccinations via their occupational health services.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is the national health and social care improvement organisation for Scotland which develops standards and indicators to support health and social care organisations improve the quality of care and support they deliver.

To support nationwide improvements in the quality of care, work is currently underway to develop a set of healthcare standards which outline the requirements for all healthcare services across Scotland.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland will publish draft National Healthcare Standards for consultation by 31 January 2025. It is anticipated that the final National Healthcare Standards will be published by end summer 2025.

My deepest thoughts and condolences are with those families affected by a death in prison custody. The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) cares for and supports some of the most complex and vulnerable individuals in our society, often at times of personal crisis.

Ligature prevention is an operational matter and ongoing priority for the SPS. The SPS Estates team consider ligature prevention in the design of cells, which continues to evolve, in order to minimise ligature points.

Following every death in prison, the SPS undertake a Death in Prison Learning Audit and Review to learn from the incident. Any learning in relation to ligature points is reported to the National Suicide Prevention Group, a multi-disciplinary group, which consider the high-level policy implications of tackling ligature risks and agree on any changes to be implemented.

There are ‘safer cells’ throughout the prison estate, which are specifically designed to reduce, as far as possible, opportunities for individuals to cause injury to themselves. Anti-ligature clothing and bedding is available where it is considered appropriate. Safer cells are used as a short term measure when the SPS believes they are necessary to safeguard the health and wellbeing of someone in their care.

Designing a prison that is considered to be entirely ligature point free would create a sterile living environment, incompatible with the aspiration of the provision of a normalised space for those in the care of the SPS. Placing individuals in the care of the SPS in restrictive, depersonalised environments as a matter of course could negatively impact on mental health, as well as indicating a lack of trust or acknowledgement of their needs.