Chamber and committees

A number of impact assessments including a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) are being prepared and will be published prior to the regulations being finalised and placed before the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Government officials have been engaging closely with Trading Standards colleagues on the draft legislation, with a focus on enforcement and tackling the illicit market. Through the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS), we continue to support strong national and local alliances to tackle the availability and sale of illicit tobacco and vapes.

UK-wide regulations are in place to ensure minimum standards for the safety and quality of e-cigarettes, including bans on certain ingredients. All e-cigarettes containing nicotine must be notified to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency before they can be sold in the UK.

If the public have concerns about illicit products, they can check a product has been successfully notified to the MHRA on their publication home page, and notify their local Trading Standards officer.

Scotland’s volunteers and third sector workers are critical to the health and wellbeing of our people, places and communities. We recognise the skills, kindness and commitment of workers and volunteers.

The Scottish Government are undertaking a co-design approach to inform NCS Future Workforce policies. We continue to engage with representatives of the workforce, including those in the third sector, to confirm their position and to ensure policies benefit the workforce.

Our Lived Experience Experts Panel (LEEP) is open to those with lived experience of accessing or delivering social care support, to allow them to be involved in co-design work - including volunteers and those working in the third sector. Registration is via the Scottish Government Website, gov.scot.

The model of shared accountability agreed for the National Care Service means that Scottish Ministers, Local Authorities and NHS Boards will each have their own responsibilities to fulfil within a new national framework.

We will continue working with COSLA and other key partners to consider how NCS benefits and system improvements can be offered to both adults and children consistently across Scotland.

The Scottish Government priority is to ensure the consistent availability and high-quality of joined-up support for those children and families who need it, wherever they live in Scotland.

We will continue working towards improving outcomes for children and families, and the workforces who care for them. There is consensus across The Scottish Government, Local Government and other partners, to collaboratively advance an agenda of improvement beyond any system reform.

A clinical refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer is underway to help ensure those with symptoms suspicious of cancer are put on the right pathway at the right time. These Guidelines have been developed for primary care clinicians to aid clinical decision making for those that require urgent specialist investigation.

Meanwhile, a new primary care cancer education platform – Gateway C – has been procured in NHS Scotland to provide innovative, and tailored information to support earlier cancer diagnosis efforts and enable effective decision-making. The first modules to be included on the platform will be launched in Spring 2024.

Scotland’s first Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services (RCDSs) – established within existing NHS infrastructure – are operational in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway NHS Fife, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Borders, providing primary care with access to a new referral pathway for patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer.

The University of Strathclyde has completed a two year evaluation of Scotland’s first RCDSs showing that the services are achieving what they set out to do – find cancer – while delivering a high standard of care for primary care and patients at speed.

Two test beds continue to pilot chest x-ray AI in NHS Scotland, to help identify those with a suspicion of lung cancer following a chest x-ray, often requested by primary care clinicians. This work aims to reduce the time from primary care referral to the urgent suspicion of cancer (USC) diagnostic pathway commencing.

Scottish Government are aware of the pressures faced by the social care providers at present and are taking a number of steps to support recruitment in the sector.

Scottish Government work with partners across the sector to support increased awareness of the careers available through our Adult Social Care marketing campaign which we have funded to run for the past four years. The campaign is supported by a stakeholder toolkit, which enables providers to use the materials to support their own local recruitment efforts. These assets have been refreshed for the 2023-24 campaign and can be found on our campaign website, www.caretocare.scot

Additionally, the Scottish Government have continued funding to enable all social care providers to advertise vacancies on the MyJobScotland recruitment website at no cost. Data figures show that between February 2021 and February 2024, 23,310 adult social care jobs have been posted on MyJobScotland under this contract, saving providers £2,068,480 (incl VAT).

Finally, recognising the value in workers who choose to live and work in Scotland from overseas and to support Scotland’s social care providers’ international recruitment efforts, we have collaborated with NHS Education Scotland (NES) and COSLA, and provided funding to create the NES Centre for Workforce Supply: Social Care. This pilot launched in summer 2023 for a 12 month period and seeks to test and develop an ethical and sustainable model of international recruitment for adult social care providers in Scotland.

The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults has been a positive development in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our local communities, with approximately 3300 grants made to local projects across Scotland in the first two years alone.

We are committed to providing this Fund going forward and are currently in the process of finalising mental health budgets for 2024-25. We will be able to confirm the amount of this funding once the budget allocations have been approved.

The Scottish Government is currently preparing a suite of impact assessments to consider the effect of the proposed measure on various communities and will be available before regulations are laid.

We recognise arguments raised in the four nations Creating a smoke free generation and tackling youth vaping consultation that disposable vapes are a useful aid to support quitting smoking but are also appealing to children. The case for action is therefore finely balanced. However, we are persuaded that action is necessary in respect of disposable vapes, due to not only environmental issues but also the low price and convenience of these products. Adults will still have access to non-disposable vapes to support smoking cessation, but banning disposables will reduce access for children while also dealing with the environmental impact of these products.

A ministerial statement on the smoke free generation and tackling youth vaping policy measures will take place following the introduction of legislation to UK Parliament.

I should firstly say that the Scottish Government do not have a specific policy on the provision of Minor Injury Units in communities. It is for local health boards and integrated joint boards to get the best combination of local and specialist services that meets the needs of their population in line with the National Clinical Strategy.

There is currently a Minor Injury Unit (MIU) in south Aberdeenshire at Jubilee Hospital in Huntly. The minor injury units at Aboyne Hospital and Kincardine Community Hospital in Stonehaven were paused in December 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Board report demand for the minor injury service from these two units was low and with the increase in the complexity and demands on community hospital in-patient wards, NHS Grampian are prioritising services that have the greatest demand to provide the best treatment and care for local communities.

NHS Grampian have confirmed that all services are subject to regular monitoring and that data is used to evidence that the care provided makes effective use of resources. For the future of minor injury service provision at Aboyne and Stonehaven, there are ongoing plans to progress this in combination with Community Treatment and Care Services (CTAC). This model would involve an appointment system rather than a drop-in service. It is worth noting that minor injury services are also available at the majority of the local GP practices.

Under the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019, service providers who engage workers or volunteers will have responsibility for ensuring any person providing a caring service receives appropriate training and support to perform their role, as they do now. This will continue under the National Care Service.

As set out in the Programme for Government, Scottish Government are working with sportscotland and local authorities to phase out charging for Active Schools. As the Active Schools programme is delivered locally by local authorities and leisure trusts, this information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. I have asked sportscotland to meet with the Member to provide more detailed information.