Chamber and committees

We are committed to supporting patients to deal with the emotional and physical effects of cancer. We are currently working in partnership with Macmillan to improve the service we offer cancer patients through the Transforming Cancer Care Programme (TCC). This joint partnership with Macmillan is worth £18 million, and is the first of its kind in the UK. The programme looks to ensure that every cancer patient in Scotland has access to specialist key support worker, who can provide emotional, financial and practical support to those who need it most. This partnership is the first of its kind in the UK.

To ensure vital services of support for patients continued throughout the pandemic we established the third sector resilience fund and the wellbeing fund as part of a £350 million support fund announced on 18 March 2020. The £15 million Adult Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund was announced on 15 October 2021. This is the first year of a two year Fund to support mental health and wellbeing in communities across Scotland.

As part of our Cancer Recovery Plan, a new National Framework has been developed to support people affected by cancer. Launching in Spring 2022, the Framework not only sets out general principles for high quality holistic care, but also incorporates a number of tools that will aid implementation across Scotland. The Framework highlights the four levels of psychological care and support which are supported through expert evidence, and presents two models for implementation that are applicable across sectors, including health, care and the third-sector.

Cancer prehabilitation can support patients with the mental and physical challenges of living with cancer. A Cancer Prehabilitation Implementation Steering Group was convened in April 2021 to support and oversee the implementation and evaluation of comprehensive prehabilitation and evaluation whilst three subgroups look to: develop a digital resource that will improve access to education and training, improve access to psychological care and support and develop and implement a nutrition framework for prehabilitation.

From the outset, the Scottish Government’s decision-making on the COVID-19 vaccination programme has been guided by the expert advice provided by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and senior clinicians.

Spring 2022 Booster

On 21 February 2022, the JCVI advised that a spring booster dose be offered to the following groups:

adults aged 75 years and over

residents in care homes for older adults

individuals aged 12 years and over who are immunosuppressed

Those who qualify as immunosuppressed as defined in chapter 14a of the Green book COVID-19 Greenbook chapter 14a (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Autumn Booster

On 19 May 2022 the JCVI issued interim advice regarding the autumn 2022 COVID-19 boosters. The JCVI interim advice is to offer the autumn 2022 vaccination to the following groups:

Residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults;

Frontline health and social care workers;

All those 65 years of age and over; and

Adults aged 16 to 65 years in a clinical risk group.

The JCVI will announce its final plans for the autumn programme, including further detail on the definitions of clinical risk groups, in due course and we stand ready to implement any further decisions on eligibility made by the JCVI.

There is a clinical referral route available for clinicians to refer anyone who they identify as requiring additional dose(s) of vaccine or a different dosing schedule for clinical reasons (in keeping with eligibility as recommended by JCVI), on a case by-case-basis.

Upon arrival of Ukrainian Displaced People at Welcome Hubs, communication needs are assessed to ensure that information is provided in a format that meets their needs. This may include easy to read documents in community languages and interpretation services for those who experience language barriers.

ESOL provision is offered by a range of providers including Community Learning and Development services through local authority partnerships, colleges, schools, voluntary organisations, universities and private language providers. Scottish Government ESOL funding is currently provided through colleges as part of the grant allocated to the Scottish Funding Council. Colleges are instructed to work with Community Planning Partnerships to determine the level of need for provision and agree with partners how this need can be met.

The Scottish Government takes the issue of Scotland’s declining populations of wild Atlantic salmon very seriously and is working to ensure the protection and recovery of this iconic species. In January 2022 the Scottish Government published the Wild Salmon Strategy which provides an overarching framework for the actions required to tackle the range of pressures affecting wild salmon. The Strategy can be accessed at Scottish Wild Salmon Strategy - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A commitment made in the Strategy is to undertake a study to identify the socio-economic benefits arising from healthy wild Atlantic salmon populations and how these can be maximised through partnerships between the public, private and charitable sectors. Furthermore, this study will allow comparisons to be made between the current economic value of the recreational fisheries sector to past values.

The most recent socio-economic study was conducted in 2017 and showed that recreational fisheries in Scotland contributed £79.9m Gross Value Added and 4300 FTE jobs. It is important to note that, although this study was published in 2017, it was based on data from 2014/15 when coastal netting was still in place. It is anticipated that the subsequent prohibition on coastal netting is likely to have had an effect on the economic value.

Developing specialist Community Perinatal Mental Health teams across every Health Board has been a priority since the start of the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board. Since 2019 we have invested over £5.5 million to establish specialist community perinatal mental health teams in every area of Scotland. This is in addition to investment in other specialist services such as infant mental health services and maternal and neonatal psychological interventions (MNPI).

To support Health Board areas to use this funding to develop local services, the Perinatal Mental Health Managed Clinical Network Scotland have developed a number of supporting resources. These include service development guides, care pathways and role descriptors.

We have also recruited a Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Service Development Advisor to work closely with Boards to support them in their implementation of specialist services.

Finalising the establishment of specialist perinatal mental health provision across all Health Boards in Scotland is a priority for the final year of the Programme Board. Every NHS Board area has an Executive Lead driving forward the programme of work and both strategic and implementation groups are also in place.

The Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) Inpatient Provision Consultation closed on 31 May 2022. While more detailed work on the outcomes of this consultation is underway, we are expecting NHS Grampian and NHS Forth Valley to enter into contractual agreements with a Mother and Baby Unit in line with the other territorial Health Boards.

The Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board and Perinatal Mental Health Managed Clinical Network Scotland will provide support to Boards in setting up these arrangements. We are in the process of meeting with MBU host Boards and NHS Forth Valley and NHS Grampian to discuss how to best ensure access for women and their infants.

Until these arrangements are in place, women residing within any Health Board area in Scotland are still able to access the specialist regional provision in a Mother and Baby Unit if clinically appropriate. Admission is based on clinical need rather than geography.

The Scottish Government has a long standing commitment of improving Fair Work across Scotland. We are actively working with our partners in Local Government, COSLA, Trade Unions and the third and independent sectors to support and encourage Effective Voice within the Adult Social Care Sector. This includes ways we can support people to access Trade Union membership through an improved awareness and access of Trade Unions. It is the responsibility of Trade Unions to build their membership through their usual channels, and we are supportive of the efforts which Trade Unions are undertaking to do this’

Furthermore, we continue to support the Fair Work and Trade Union Modernisation Fund, committing to support unions in embedding the Fair Work Framework in Scotland’s workplaces. This funding has enabled unions to work proactively, and to build upon ongoing efforts, to tackle precarious work, and organising for Fair Work in less unionised sectors.

The Bus Priority Rapid Deployment Fund (BPRDF) ran from July 2020 until June 2021 and was designed to support local authorities – working closely with bus operators - to respond to congestion with interventions such as temporary bus lanes or gates. 41 bus priority projects were implemented across Scotland.

Though the Fund was for short-term measures, it provided an opportunity for local authorities to test interventions as they developed plans for longer-term investment in bus priority, to lock in benefits for bus passengers, the bus industry and the environment. Learning and evidence from BPRDF informed local authority applications to the Bus Partnership Fund, which opened in July 2021 for bids to develop and deliver permanent bus priority infrastructure on local roads.