Chamber and committees

The Charity Brain Tumour Research currently funds five Centres of Excellence for Brain Tumour Research (at the Institute for Cancer Research in Surrey, the University of Plymouth, Queen Mary University London, Imperial College London, and the University of Portsmouth).

Centres of Excellence | Brain Tumour Research

Brain Tumour Research has a UK-wide remit and Scottish Institutions are eligible to apply for Centre of Excellence status.

Centre of Excellence designation is awarded by Brain Tumour Research based on a process of independent expert review. This process is not a matter for the Scottish Government.

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund has received various applications from local authorities and registered social landlords (RSLs) since its inception in 2020.

To date the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund has received 65 applications since 2020 for capital funding, of which 55 applications have been awarded funding. 10 applications have been rejected, invited to resubmit following feedback or have been referred to alternative funding sources.

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund also funds a stream of pre-capital projects for development funding and has received 20 applications for development funding, with 12 applications being funded, and 8 being rejected, invited to resubmit or referred to alternative funding sources.

With limited powers and a constrained budget the Scottish Government has already increased Scottish Child Payment by 150% in less than 8 months over 2022. Since its extension to under 16s in November 2022, 385,000 children are now eligible for the benefit.

As part of 'Best Start, Bright Futures', the Scottish Government published a Cumulative Impact Assessment in March 2022, estimating the impact in 2023-24 of a range of policies designed to reduce child poverty. This included lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of poverty in Scotland in 2023-24 through the Scottish Child Payment at £25 per week per child, a five percentage point reduction in relative child poverty.

The context for those policies has changed since this analysis was published, with a constantly moving, uncertain economic outlook, and a series of policy announcements, retractions, and further announcements by the UK Government.

The Scottish Government will publish the annual progress report on child poverty, covering the period 2022-23, by the end of June. This will set out progress in implementing 'Best Start, Bright Futures', the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: 2022-26, and against the ambitious targets set through the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.

Integration Authorities (IAs) are required to prepare and publish an annual performance report to demonstrate performance against the national health and wellbeing outcomes. In order to demonstrate performance, IAs use the core suite of integration indicators which includes a measure of the proportion of care services graded ‘good’ (4) or better in Care Inspectorate inspections.

All social care services, including those provided by local authorities, are regulated and inspected by the Care Inspectorate. The results of these inspections are published on the Care Inspectorate’s website.

Social care providers also provide a range of information which is used to collate publications of official statistics by the Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS). Scottish Government official statistics are available via the following link Health and social care analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This includes Free Personal and Nursing Care, Social Care Eligibility and Waiting Times, and Carers Census statistics. PHS official statistics releases include: Insights in Social Care, the Scottish Care Home Census, Delayed Discharges and Care at Home Demand ( Publications - Public Health Scotland ).

People living with Parkinson’s should be responsible for the administration of all their medicines, including during a stay in any health or care setting, unless a risk assessment indicates otherwise. There are several tools to help people to remember to take their medication, including using alarms on a digital watch, or setting a reminder on a smartphone, using medication reminder charts, using pill timer boxes and multi-compartment compliance aids. In health and care settings, including hospitals, organisational policies will define who can administer medicines, or the appropriate delegation of the administration of medicines, within that setting. This should include a policy for self-administration of medicines.

All registered healthcare professionals who administer medicines, or - when appropriate - delegate the administration of medicines, are accountable for their actions, and this includes recording when a dose of medication may have been missed. This is in line with professional and regulatory standards and guidance. Non-registered healthcare professionals are appropriately trained, assessed as competent and meet relevant organisational guidance on medicines administration.

The administration of Parkinson’s medications vary from person to person and does not always correspond with hospital ward medicine administration rounds for people who are not able to self-administer, and so the roll-out of a Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicine Administration (HEPMA) system across Scottish hospitals will help to reduce any missed doses, as well as providing a record of any omissions which provides data to support improvement in the administration of medicines. In addition, there are additional tools in use in some hospitals which can provide alerts as reminders to administer Parkinson’s medicines.

Destinations signed on Scotland’s roads, including the strategic trunk road network managed by Transport Scotland, are determined in accordance with national guidance in ‘Local Transport Note 1/94 Design and Use of Directional Traffic Signs’. The guidance presents a list of 43 ‘Primary Destinations’ in Scotland which are prioritised for inclusion on trunk road directional signing. Factors influencing what is appropriate as a Primary Destination may include population, the levels of traffic attracted to the destination, the strategic position of the destination relative to key junctions and route-finding, and the geographical density of destinations within the local area. The guidance emphasises the need for continuity, and provides recommended limits on the number of destinations included on each sign, to ensure clarity.

We are committed to finding ways to make alternative travel modes more attractive, and supporting people to take fewer journeys by car. The Scottish Government’s plans to encourage the use of public transport and active travel alongside plans to reduce car use, are set out in the draft route map on 20% reduction in car kilometres by 2030, jointly developed with COSLA. We have also set out our future transport infrastructure priorities in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review published on 8 December 2022 which includes a focus on active travel, mass transit and bus priority for mode shift away from the predominance of cars.

However, the evidence is clear that incentivising sustainable alternatives alone will not be sufficient to bring about the behaviour change to deliver the scale of 20% car KM reduction. Therefore as outlined in our draft 20% route map, we have commissioned research exploring equitable options for demand management to discourage car use.

The most direct levers on the cost of buying or running a petrol or diesel car – fuel duty and vehicle excise duty – are currently reserved, and the recent rises in the cost of motoring underline the unfairness of the current, regressive motoring tax regime. As such, we will continue to press the UK Government for a fair and progressive future transport tax system that better incentivises the transition to zero-emission vehicles, reduces unnecessary journeys and raises revenues to fund policies to support a shift to more sustainable travel.

The final version of the route map to achieving a 20% reduction in car km in Scotland by 2030 will be published alongside the public consultation analysis of the responses to the draft version of the route map, and the commissioned demand management research, in the coming months.

The medicines reconciliation process is set out at a national level, and the responsibility lies within each Health Board to enact and monitor adherence.

Board specific policies detail the roles and responsibilities of healthcare professionals when completing and updating medicines reconciliation forms during admission, transfer, and discharge.

Arrangements may vary, therefore specific details could be obtained directly from the Health Boards.

The Scottish Government welcomes this report and recognises that reaching our target of a 20% reduction in car km by 2030 will require a broad combination of interventions, including infrastructure, incentives and disincentives.

I further refer the member to the answer to question S6T-01336 on 25 April 2023, with regard to investment in public transport. All answers to oral parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, which can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-25-04-2023?meeting=15260&iob=130152

Transport Scotland is aware of concerns expressed by the local community in relation to signage on the A7 towards Langholm. Transport Scotland has reviewed the signing and is content that current signage is in accordance with national guidance document ‘Local Transport Note 1/94 Design and Use of Directional Traffic Signs’. In relation to the A7 trunk road, Langholm currently features on all route confirmatory signs northbound and southbound within Scotland, and on advance direction signage southbound in Hawick. Transport Scotland has engaged with officials at Department for Transport, National Highways and Cumbria County Council to discuss continuity of signing to Langholm on both sides of the border.