Chamber and committees

Public Health Scotland estimates that approximately 500 individuals, equivalent to 7% of the cohort living with HIV in Scotland, are undiagnosed.

A range of testing initiatives are being implemented to encourage people to access HIV testing. The Scottish Government’s Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan, published in November 2023, has a focus on improving access to sexually transmitted infection and blood borne virus testing across Scotland. To support this, we have funded a range of projects to expand access and promote uptake of testing, including the development of a national online postal self-sampling service, HIV self-testing and community-based services delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust, and piloting emergency department opt-out testing in NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian and NHS Highland.

Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out further actions to encourage people to access testing and to identify optimal approaches to finding people living with undiagnosed HIV.

As set out in my answer to question S6W-25994 on 18 March 2024, we remain committed to delivering the £10 million long COVID Support Fund in full. The 2024-25 budget published on 19 December 2023 outlines our plans to make £3 million from the long COVID Support Fund available over 2024-25.

We will process NHS Boards’ first tranche of their total 2024-25 allocations from the fund early in the financial year. The second tranche will be made later in the financial year following progress reporting.

We anticipate that the remainder of the funding will be allocated over the financial year 2025-26.

As outlined in the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal, published on 1 December 2022, our aim is to achieve ‘zero people contracting HIV within Scotland by 2030’. To do so, one of the key interim targets is to achieve 100 or fewer first ever diagnoses per year by the end of 2025.

The most recently published HIV data for Scotland (to 31 December 2022), released by Public Health Scotland on 26 September 2023, indicate that, since 2017, the annual number of first ever diagnoses recorded in Scotland has more than halved, decreasing from 226 in 2017 to 108 in 2022. Of note, 55 of 108 (51%) first ever diagnoses recorded in 2022 were thought likely to have been acquired within Scotland.

In addition, the data indicate a small proportion (11%) of first ever HIV diagnoses were recently acquired (i.e. within the previous three to four months). This is the lowest number and proportion for over five years and is, in part, the result of the Scottish Government’s world-leading approach to making HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis available on the NHS in 2017.

We do not know the numbers of children affected because the information has not been collected historically.

In response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review (IMMDSR), the Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to establish a medicines in pregnancy surveillance asset. This resource will support monitoring and reporting to progress improvements in the safe use of valproate and other teratogenic medicines in Scotland. Its first output is due to be published by PHS in April 2024 and will include prescribing data and trends for valproate and other anti-seizure medicines.

Following careful consideration by the HIV Transmission Elimination Scoping Group, and the advice of clinical and public health experts, the Scottish Government is not planning to introduce a national HIV testing week at this time. Given Scotland’s relatively low HIV prevalence, the potential benefits of a national testing week would primarily be in addressing stigma and promoting testing rather than finding and supporting individuals with undiagnosed infections. Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out our approach to addressing stigma and promoting testing on a consistent, year-round basis.

We will review the potential costs and benefits of a national testing week once priority actions to expand capacity and improve access to testing have been progressed.

Local evaluation will be conducted by the team at NHS Grampian and will be followed by an overarching review of the three emergency department opt-out testing projects announced by myself last November.

There are no imminent plans to expand emergency department opt-out blood borne virus testing to other areas. It is important that decisions about any further expansion are based on the best available evidence. The Scottish Government will use evaluation data from the current pilot projects, combined with other evidence, to determine whether further roll out would be acceptable, deliverable and cost-effective in Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-25557 on‎ 25 March 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

In 2019 the Scottish Government instituted a period of legal reform for the framework underpinning Scottish road works, expanding and strengthening the range of existing powers roads authorities have.

Since 2023 Scottish Ministers have taken action on enforcement powers, through empowering roads authorities by endorsing a new Code of Practice for reinstatement, which introduced a UK leading six year guarantee for utility works. We have committed to a review of road works Fixed Penalty Notices (the fines to be levied), due to start in 2024.

Authorities already have an existing power to undertake any outstanding work directly and recharge all costs, should the utility fail to act. These are all discretionary powers, and it is for each roads authority to determine whether it is appropriate to use those powers in each situation.

he importance of retaining individuals living with HIV in treatment and care is recognised in the UNAIDS/WHO targets and the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal as one of the five pillars of interventions (entry into and retention in specialist HIV care). Specialist HIV services and HIV third sector organisations will work together to optimise the updating of information with regards to the movement or transfer of individuals to facilitate engagement with services.

This work will be supported by Public Health Scotland through the provision of NHS board level data on people diagnosed with HIV but not attending specialist treatment and care services for whom, through linkage of data to migration, death, hospitalisation, prescription and vaccination datasets, there is evidence that they remain resident in Scotland.