Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government set out plans to build a system of funded school age childcare for low-income families in our "School Age Childcare Delivery Framework", published in October 2023. The Framework can be found on the Scottish Government website at: www.gov.scot/publications/school-age-childcare-delivery-framework/

We remain committed to driving down waiting times. We have increased investment in frontline NHS boards by more than half a billion pounds in the draft Budget. We will continue to target resources to reduce waiting times, particularly for those waiting longest for treatment, through maximising productivity and additional resources.

We are working with Health Boards on detailed annual plans to demonstrate how waiting lists will be managed to see reductions, improved productivity and clear evidence on how this will help free additional capacity.

We remain committed to eradicating long waits to ensure all people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.

We opened two new National Treatment Centres in Fife and Highland in Spring 2023, and NTC-Forth Valley and the second phase expansion of NTC-Golden Jubilee will open in 2024. These centres will deliver eight orthopaedic theatres and will provide additional and protected capacity for hip and knee replacements.

This year NTC Highland is providing 1,500 orthopaedic procedures and NTC-Fife plans to deliver more than 700 orthopaedic procedures by 2025/2026.

Significant progress is also being made in the delivery of same-day discharge arthroplasty, allowing patients to be safely discharged home on the same day as their procedure, increasing capacity within Orthopaedics.

TrakCare is used as the main patient management system by 13 Health Boards:

• NHS Ayrshire and Arran;
• NHS Borders;
• NHS Fife;
• NHS Forth Valley;
• NHS Great Glasgow and Clyde;
• NHS Grampian;
• Golden Jubilee National Hospital;
• NHS Highland;
• NHS Lanarkshire;
• NHS Lothian;
• NHS Orkney;
• NHS Shetland; and
• NHS Tayside.

All 13 Health Boards use TrakCare for waiting lists, Outpatients and inpatients, clinical coding, national Scottish Morbidity Records and new ways returns. Various Boards also use TrakCare for Emergency Departments, maternity services, mental health, community services, radiology, and theatres.

In addition, the system supports order request functionality for the service departments to manage the provision of laboratory, X-ray and diagnostic services; and Allied Health Professionals, observations, and clinical data recoding in clinical forms to varying degrees.

The Scottish Government does not collate or hold information on how many staff the Health Boards employ to maintain TrakCare.

The UK Government did not inflation-proof its capital budget which has resulted in nearly a 10% real-terms cut in the Scottish Government’s capital funding over the medium-term between 2023-24 and 2027-28. The result of this cut is that new health capital projects have currently been paused.

Work is underway to update the pipeline of projects and programmes relating to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment Plan to ensure it is affordable and deliverable and provides best value for money. Our emphasis for the immediate future will be on addressing backlog maintenance and essential equipment replacement.

The Scottish Government continues to protect investment in digital within health services, as shown in the published budget. Planning remains underway to fully assess the impact on planned activity for 2024-25 that takes into account the considerable financial challenges facing the Scottish Government in the forthcoming financial year, and we will publish our Delivery Plan for Digital Health & Care in April 2024. This will confirm delivery priorities for the year ahead using the investment available.

Whilst the Scottish Government is supportive of a new station in Winchburgh, it is our understanding of the station proposal that it is and has always been a developer led station, as outlined in Winchburgh Developments Ltd.’s original Masterplan for further development.

I can confirm, the Scottish Government welcomes the collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach and I and my officials in Transport Scotland will continue to support the process of exploring options for the delivery of a new station at Winchburgh.

It is a fundamental priority for the Scottish Government to ensure that people take up their full entitlement to social security benefits. This includes UK reserved benefits such as Attendance Allowance, where promotion and delivery remains the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Welfare advice services work closely with people across Scotland who may be entitled to benefits but have not yet applied. This year, we have allocated funding of £12.5 million to support free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services, helping people to access social security and maximise incomes.

Social Security Scotland also work extensively with local and national stakeholders to promote Scottish payments. This includes engagement with a group of stakeholders representing Energy Limited Chronic Illnesses, which brings together a number of organisations supporting people with fibromyalgia.

The Scottish Government is aware of correspondence in which Community has raised concerns regarding aspects of the transition process and trade union recognition. Myself and the Scottish Prison Service have responded.

The impact assessments for the E&S portfolio were prepared collectively and reflected in the Education and Skills portfolio analysis section in Annex B of the Equality and Fairer Scotland statement available at this link: Scottish Budget - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .