Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government and CoSLA’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan contains a commitment to work with The Promise Scotland to engage with care experienced people to better understand what action is needed to embed suicide prevention activity in our support to children and young people in care and care leavers, whom we know are at elevated risk of suicide.

During 2023-24, this has included work to build in suicide prevention across policies which tackle the social determinants of suicide, as part of our whole of government and society approach, and maximising opportunities to support care experienced people who are suicidal through their contact with services, such as homelessness and Social Security Scotland. Our innovative partnership-led delivery model is driving the implementation of our action plan and helping to extend our reach and impact in preventing suicide among care experienced groups by bringing together partners to share resources, learning and expertise. Central to this model is our Youth Advisory Group which includes care experienced young people affected by suicide. The Group is helping to shape our suicide prevention work to ensure it can best support and meet their needs.

We are now intensively developing our 2024-25 delivery plan, working collectively with The Promise Scotland as part of the development process, and considering how together we can achieve closer alignment across our outcomes measurement. The Scottish Government and COSLA will sign-off this delivery plan in coming months.

The Scottish Government has not given any consideration to developing qualifications for those wishing to train to become pet groomers as we do not consider it to be the role of Government to develop such courses.

There are already various organisations and individuals that offer specific training in dog grooming, with more formal providers delivering training which leads to the award of SQA or City and Guilds recognised qualifications in dog grooming. Other training of relevance to those offering dog grooming services is available through a number of colleges covering animal care, animal husbandry etc.

The jointly chaired Scottish Government/COSLA Population Roundtable meets quarterly to discuss a range of population challenges, with representation from all of Scotland’s thirty-two local authorities. It has met three times since it was recently reconvened in April 2023. A date for the next meeting has not yet been confirmed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26467 on 16 April 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26467 on 16 April 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26467 on 16 April 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Full budget allocations for 2024-25 are still to be confirmed.

In 2023-24, Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships (ADPs) received funding exceeding £112 million.

We expect children and young people who need inpatient mental health care to be looked after in age-appropriate facilities. Following recommendations from the Mental Welfare Commission, the Scottish Government commissioned a national review of existing provision for young people under 18 years who had needs and risks that required intensive psychiatric care. This review published its findings in June 2021 and recommended purpose-built regional units adjacent to existing inpatient services.

Since then, the Scottish Government has provided funding to NHS Boards to support the development of regional Intensive Psychiatric Care Units for young people. Work is currently ongoing to support NHS Boards to establish these facilities, including engagement with regional planning and recruitment to develop this work.

In addition, in June 2020, the Scottish Government published a protocol for admissions of young people to adult wards, in response to action 19 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-27. This protocol is a best practice guidance to aid implementation of Section 23 of the Mental Health (Care & Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 which places a duty on health boards to provide sufficient services and accommodation to meet the needs of young people under 18 when they are admitted to hospital for treatment of a mental disorder.

The Scottish Government will introduce legislation to implement the recommendations of the Working Group on Misogyny and the Criminal Law later this year, informed by responses to last year's consultation on draft legislative provisions to give effect to those recommendations.

To support general practice services, we have significantly expanded the primary care multi-disciplinary team workforce, with over 4,700 staff working in services including physiotherapy, pharmacy and phlebotomy at March 2023.

We are supporting development of these teams through an annual investment of £190 million in the Primary Care Improvement Fund which is distributed on an NRAC basis.

While we have made significant progress, we know that implementation gaps remain. That is why we have introduced the Phased Investment Programme, working with a small number of areas to demonstrate what a model multidisciplinary team can look like in practice. This programme will strengthen the evidence base on the national context for the implementation of multidisciplinary teams and inform future long term Scottish Government investment.

In addition, we have submitted our annual evidence to the DDRB for its recommendations on a pay uplift for GPs and will consider them carefully.