Chamber and committees

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. The Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities and thyroid conditions are not specifically mentioned in this iteration of the Plan.

However we do recognise that many women are significantly affected by the condition and we are committed to ensuring that people living with hypothyroidism are able to access the best possible support from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care. Information on symptoms and treatments are available at NHS Inform .

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

The Scottish Government recognises improving population health as a key priority and invests in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to sustain or return to work, including Healthy Working Lives (HWL). HWL is a programme delivered by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and statistics on the online platform is a matter for PHS. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Tarmac is the only cement plant in Scotland located in Dunbar. In 2021, they published their sustainability strategy, followed by the recent publication of Tarmac’s Net Zero Roadmap which state the paths to decarbonise their operations. Scottish Government officials are meeting with Tarmac in August 2023 to discuss Tarmac’s plans to lower emissions from cement production.

The Scottish Government has, since 2016 to the present day, provided funding to the Progress Education Trust of £276,494.75. The funding has been provided for Progress Educational Trust to produce educational reproductive events in Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question: S6W-19833 on 31 July 2023. 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 .

Unused recipient funds, including those in consequence of the death of recipients, are returned to ILF Scotland who in consultation with SG officials, decide whether to use it for spending priorities associated with ILF or to offset ILF Scotland’s monthly drawdown on its annual funding allocation. In the past funds have been used to cover the cost of Scottish Living Wage uplifts for personal assistants employed by ILF recipients, reductions in contributions from recipients towards the cost of their support and a Digital Transformation for ILF Scotland IT systems.

Funding for the Independent Living Fund (ILF) Scotland is transferred each year to ILF Scotland to meet existing commitments to the current ILF population under the ILF Scotland policy framework. These policies are set by Ministers and can be found on the ILF website: ILF Scotland Policies | ILF Scotland .

The Scottish Government receives £53.3 million per year from the UK Government to help maintain support for the former ILF/UK population transferred in July 2015. The following table shows the funding allocated by SG to ILF Scotland annually since the first full financial year of 2016-17. In addition, the annual outturn of ILF Scotland can be found within their published accounts (linked here: ILF Scotland Annual Accounts )

The Scottish Government has not been made aware of any issues with regard to the disposal of used incontinence products, and has no plans to require that public toilets have incontinence bins installed.

NHS Boards regularly assess continence patients’ needs, with the assessments undertaken by dedicated Bladder and Bowel Teams or community nursing staff. This ensures that patients’ needs are met, either through treatment or through provision of appropriate containment products. Referrals can also be made by patients’ GPs where necessary, and also by a range of other healthcare professionals including pharmacists, consultants, and care home staff.

Where a patient has been assessed as requiring continence products, these are provided by their local NHS Board’s continence service on prescription. As such, any person that is suffering from incontinence, such as men living with prostate cancer, should seek a referral to their local continence service in order that their incontinence can be assessed, treated where appropriate, or managed through the prescription of continence products.

Scottish Government officials meet regularly with the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to discuss a range of improvement programmes that support service innovation and redesign, including new pathways of care that are more efficient and provide sustainable solutions for the future.

The CfSD was first approached about urogynaecology waiting times on 19 May 2023 and a plan to identify treatment options for long waiting patients across Scotland, including NHS Tayside, was agreed on 5 June 2023.

As the information requested is personal data of a third party, disclosing the list of attendees at these meetings would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Professor Graham Ellis, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, met separately with Dr Pamela Johnston, Operational Medical Director of NHS Tayside, on 11 May 2023.