Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government's surge and resilience preparedness approach includes established monitoring, escalation and assurance arrangements to support NHS Boards and their partners in responding to periods of sustained operational pressure. These arrangements do not rely on any single intervention to deliver improvements in patient flow or hospital capacity.

Where pressures exceed local capacity, NHS Boards can implement local escalation procedures and access support through existing regional and national coordination arrangements. Alongside these arrangements, the Scottish Government is developing a National Flow Plan to support longer-term improvements in patient flow, occupancy management, delayed discharge and system resilience. The Scottish Government continues to work closely with NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to monitor pressures, support appropriate action and maintain safe and effective services.

I refer the Member to the revised answer to the previous Parliamentary Questions S7W-01249, published on 9 July 2026 . All answers to Parliamentary Questions are available on the Scottish Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Tax Advisory Group (TAG), which was chaired by the previous Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, met from July 2023 and concluded with the previous parliamentary session.

Engagement remains an important part of policymaking, and I plan to engage with Parliament and wider stakeholders on tax policy including as part of Budget processes.

We have a strong record of engagement on tax policy beyond TAG, including the first Scottish Government conference on tax in September last year, and meetings with a range of organisations as part of the Budget process. Our second Tax Conference is planned for 24 September 2026.

Scotland’s approach to attracting foreign direct investment and creating jobs is set out in Scotland’s Inward Investment Plan, published in 2020.

As the Covid 19 UK Inquiry Module 5 report sets out, the figure of £9.9 billion relates to PPE written off by the UK Government alone. The report also notes that the Scottish Government wrote off £8.35 million of PPE and other items in the period from 2020-2023.

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with Public Services Delivery Scotland (PSDS), has a range of measures to reduce wastage of PPE in any future health emergency. The national stockpile consists of a wide range of PPE items, aligned to the requirements of NHS Scotland and rotated into NHS usage to help prevent and reduce wastage.

During a future health emergency, we will work in partnership with PSDS and other stakeholders to ensure stock is procured and deployed based on assessed need, clinical guidance, and demand intelligence; while providing only items of PPE which meet the relevant product standards.

We are also working on a project which aims to support Health Boards to move to using more re-usable PPE products where appropriate.

The Scottish Government recognises the fragmented nature of the approval and routes to implementation for medical innovations across devices, diagnostics and new technological interventions.

Whilst the Scottish Government does not hold specific data on the time to adoption of all medical technologies, it is actively working to streamline processes within the health and care system to enable faster access to innovative products and solutions in line with our ambitions set out in our Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework.

Growing Scotland’s life sciences sector and enhancing research, development and innovation are core Scottish Government commitments backed by the Life Sciences Strategy for Scotland and the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework. This is underpinned through a national innovation ecosystem designed to develop, test, adopt and scale the innovations most likely to improve the lives of people in Scotland.

Commercial multigene assays for breast cancer patients have been adopted in Scotland in line with the independent recommendations of the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG). SHTG have criteria and processes in place to judge whether new evidence is sufficient to revise its existing recommendations.

The Scottish Government works with NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to support local surge and winter preparedness arrangements through nationally agreed planning priorities and principles. Local systems are expected to develop preparedness arrangements that reflect the needs of their populations and local circumstances.

The Scottish Government is currently refreshing the National Planning Priorities and Principles for Surge and Winter Preparedness and associated expectations for NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships for 2026-27. This work is aligned with development of the National Flow Plan, which forms part of wider activity to improve patient flow, reduce delayed discharge and make best use of capacity across health and social care services.

Operational preparedness plans are developed and maintained locally. Decisions regarding publication of local planning documents are a matter for individual NHS Boards and partner organisations. The Scottish Government intends to publish national guidance and planning priorities following completion of the current review process.

It is for NHS Boards to make decisions with regards to the introduction or roll out of service changes or new treatments.

The Scottish Government understands that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence does not recommend focal therapy for routine use for prostate cancer treatment.

The Scottish Government was pleased to note the publication of Breast Cancer Now’s Scotland Demands Change Report. It was positive to note that the charities two ambitions ‘quicker, earlier diagnosis to save and improve lives’ and ‘everyone getting the best care and support’ align closely with the ambitions laid out in the Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033.

Our work on earlier diagnosis includes our Detect Cancer Earlier Programme which takes a whole-systems approach to early detection and encompasses primary care, diagnostics, public education, data, innovation and screening.

Our work on ‘care and support’ includes our partnership Macmillan to improve the service we offer patients with cancer through the Transforming Cancer Care Programme (TCC) and our flagship Single Point of Contact programme which gives people with cancer a consistent contact throughout their treatment, enabling specialist staff to focus on complex clinical care.

The Scottish Government does not hold this operational information. The member may wish to contact the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service directly, as the Service is responsible for the deployment and operation of its vehicles.