Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is grateful to all Dispensing Appliance Contractors and community pharmacies for the service offered to stoma patients across Scotland and is committed to putting in place arrangements to best support them. Data shows that the volume of items provided by stoma suppliers has steadily increased by over two thirds (72.5%) since 2011 and suppliers are reimbursed for all items dispensed, resulting in a £2.539m increase (48%). Suppliers also benefit from a Global Sum of £3.8 million. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government recognises the requirement to keep arrangements under review and will explore whether changes are required to the fee structure and are within the affordability of the wider public sector finances.

1.New commercial arrangements were introduced in 2011 for the supply of stoma appliances to patients in the community and have been in place since. These arrangements are set up through contractual arrangements put in place by NHS Scotland National Procurement acting on behalf of Health Boards. They provide a framework which controls the cost of dispensing these items which is carried out by both Dispensing Appliance Contractors (DACs) and community pharmacy contractors who sign up to offer the service.

2.The arrangements are made up of a Global Sum for stoma appliance supply remuneration and fees for customisation and delivery. Suppliers are able to make profit on the sales and customisation aspects of the service. The Scottish Government’s Pharmacy Policy team holds meetings with the British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) who represent DACs in the UK. They have called for improvements to the current arrangements and discussions are currently being arranged to hear details of these proposals.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Public Health Scotland publishes a yearly report named the ‘Prescription Cost Analysis’ which outlines annual total expenditure on all prescriptions from community pharmacy in Scotland. British National Formulary chapter 4 includes methadone and buprenorphine (also known by its brand name Buvidal) and the cost of prescribing these drugs can be found on tab 4 of the PCA at Dispenser payments and prescription cost analysis - Financial year 2023 to 2024 - Dispenser payments and prescription cost analysis - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

While the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, the statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning and providing appropriate social care services at a local level lies with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships. This includes the responsibility to reduce the number of people being delayed in hospital unnecessarily.

Since 2015-16, the Scottish Government has provided additional funding for social care and integration. This annual investment has risen to almost £2.2 billion in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.

However, decisions on how best to deliver services to local communities are ultimately for Health and Social Care Partnerships and locally elected representatives to make.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, we have been able to access the data held by National Records of Scotland (NRS) for the years 2010 and 2015. (Please see table attached). As at
31 March 2025, there are 2,938 GDS dentists, up c.5% over the last year and there are 3,249 primary care dentists, an increase of 4.2% over the last year.

The development of a national pilot to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum, and who are currently not eligible for existing National Concessionary Travel Schemes, is progressing with the Working Group. This group, which includes third-party representatives, reconvened on 7th May, with the most recent meeting taking place on 11 June.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many providers have withdrawn from offering funded early learning and childcare (ELC), or their reasons for doing so.

Information on the number of private, and third sector childcare services delivering funded ELC in each local authority in September each year is captured through the ELC census. This information is published as part of the Summary Statistics for Schools and is available in Table 1 of the Additional early learning and childcare statistics spreadsheet. It is important to note that there may currently be additional services delivering funded ELC that were not doing so at the time of the Census. Table 1 also includes information on the share of ELC registrations that were in private and third sector services (Partnership Centres) in each year.

Table: Number of Partnership Centres (private and third sector services) providing funded ELC

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with long term conditions including Chronic Kidney Disease are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

We are running our public consultation on the Long Term Conditions Framework from 23 April to 20 July 2025. This is available at Health: Long Term Conditions Framework - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

We will take the results of the consultation into account when developing the framework which will include identifying areas where targeted condition-specific action will still be needed. In the development of the framework we will identify what funding is available for implementation.

The information requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Government does not collect or hold data about the condition of early learning and childcare (ELC) settings. Owners and managers are responsible for building management and for ensuring the safety of their premises. Statutory requirements for the fitness of premises to be used for the provision of ELC are set out in Section 10 of The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011.

Now in its third year (2025-2026), the SEEP Test and Learn project has been expanded to include Scottish Community Learning and Development (CLD) providers.

In year three, the SEEP Test and Learn Project budget for Scottish college and universities projects is £400,000. It is £100,000 for Scottish Community Learning and Development led projects. The total budget is £500,000.

Additional details are available here Scottish Education Exchange Programme: Test and Learn project - gov.scot