Chamber and committees

The number of patients who have waited over 12 weeks for Trauma and Orthopaedic surgery in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Ayrshire and Arran are published by Public Health Scotland (PHS) on a quarterly basis. These details are available on PHS’s website and can be found in table 1.2 through the following link: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/8811/newop_aug21.xlsx

Any decisions to scale back elective activity, including decisions to cancel consultant clinics, are being taken on an evidence basis and where the need to support COVID-19 patients and provide urgent care exceeds capacity for elective care.

However, the NHS in Scotland continues to work to deliver appointments in new and innovative ways to avoid as many cancellations as possible. For example, Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT), which is being supported within NHS Scotland via the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, enables Senior Clinicians to triage patients to the most appropriate pathway for their individual needs. For example, some patients will receive written clinical information outlining treatment options, including self-care and the option to ‘opt in’ for a face-to-face discussion if required (e.g. EQuIP pathway for Inguinal Hernia). Other patients, where appropriate, will be offered a virtual consultation or may be sent straight onto a diagnostic test. By embedding the ACRT process within routine care, it will support clinical prioritisation and enable services to provide patients with the optimum pathway to meet their needs, and lead to fewer appointments being cancelled.

Importantly, ACRT also facilitates the continuous monitoring of patients awaiting review e.g. Endoscopy Services continue to validate both new and routine waiting lists using a 3-stage validation and clinical guidelines where appropriate.

Recovering our NHS is our top priority. Addressing the backlog of care, while continuing to meet the ongoing urgent health and care needs of the country, is the central aim of our NHS Recovery Plan.

The Plan is backed by over £1 billion of additional investment to support delivery of improvements throughout the 5 years of this Parliament. Amongst other things, it will increase primary care investment by 25% and restore face to face consultations in GP surgeries. It will reduce A&E attendances by 15% to 20% and increase outpatient capacity by 10% compared to pre-Covid levels.

While it is not possible to determine when NHS performance will return to pre-pandemic levels, we will continue to work to identify ways of adding additional activity, through new facilities or through improvements to existing ways of working in order to reduce the length of time patients are waiting and bring waiting times back within standards.

The Net Zero Technology Centre has not provided any funding directly for the benefit of any of the three Operators in question.

The Net Zero Technology Centre model provides funding for developers with a prerequisite that the project has industry support in order to provide match funding, industry engagement and access to the facilities and expertise that is required to prove the technology. This is in line with the Business Case approved as part of the Aberdeen City Region Deal, in which joint Government funding of £180m over ten years was to be matched by industry and academia to a target amount of £174.1m.

We are taking forward a number of recommendations made by the Short Life Working Group on Ventilation in order to improve airflow in settings where transmission of Covid-19 is most likely to occur. As the First Minister stated when she announced this £25 million package of funding, the support will focus on the hospitality and leisure sectors although the specific sectors and premises that will be eligible for financial support through this fund is still being determined and community halls are being actively considered as part of this process.

The Scottish Ministers take collective responsibility for all decisions reached by the Scottish Government, and will continue to do so in future, including on our commitment to phasing out the need to install new or replacement fossil fuel boilers, in off-gas areas from 2025 and in on-gas areas from 2030, subject to technological developments and decisions by the UK Government in reserved areas.

As set out in the Heat in Buildings Strategy, we will phase out the need to install new or replacement fossil fuel heating systems, in off-gas grid homes from 2025 and in on-gas areas from 2030, subject to technological developments and decisions by the UK Government in reserved areas.

The Scottish Government will consult further on this proposal during 2022.

Business Improvement Districts are business partnerships which vote to invest collectively to deliver local economic growth. There are currently 38 operating in Scotland covering town and city centres as well as themed areas such as digital, food and drink, and tourism. Business Improvement Districts in Scotland have consistently raised just over £6 million on average per annum in core levy.

People who received their vaccination during the early stages of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme started to receive booster injections from 20 September. This follows advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) which advised that the booster dose can be given alongside the flu jab and should be offered no earlier than six months after completion of the primary vaccine course.

Frontline health and social care workers were able to book their appointment online at NHS Inform from 20 September. Residents in care homes for older people were also being offered both flu and COVID-19 boosters from this date. Adults aged 70 years and over and adults aged 16 and over who are on the highest risk list (previously known as the shielding list) are being contacted, either by letter or by their GP.

All those aged 16 to 49 years with underlying health conditions, adult carers, unpaid and young carers, adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals and all adults over 50 will be able to book online soon.

As most younger adults will only receive their second COVID-19 vaccine dose in late summer, the benefits of booster vaccination in this group will be considered by the JCVI at a later time when more information is available.

I can confirm that I have laid a report in Parliament today that provides an update on the Scottish Government’s renewable heat target. The report is now available on the Scottish Government website (at www.gov.scot/isbn/9781802015348 ).

Renewable heat generated in Scotland in 2020 was equivalent to 6.4% of non-electrical fuels consumed for heat. This represents a slight decrease in useful renewable heat generated since 2019. This reduction in renewable heat was largely due to reduced output from large biomass systems at industrial sites, and should be seen in the context of a difficult year for the Scottish economy due to the pandemic.

Reaching 6.4% renewable heat means we missed the 11% target, and is clearly disappointing. Deployment of renewable heat has seen challenges over the past decade. For example, the delay in introducing tariff guarantees for the Renewable Heat Incentive resulted in uncertainties for businesses in Scotland and delays to investment in new capacity. Challenges to deployment have been accompanied by outturn data on higher than anticipated demand that indicate that around a third more non-electrical fuel is consumed for heat than had been anticipated in 2009.

Beneath the headline statistic we see continued growth in the deployment of building-level renewable heat systems, particularly heat pumps. The Heat in Buildings Strategy, published earlier this month, makes clear we must accelerate deployment of zero emissions heat technologies so that by 2030 over 1 million homes and the equivalent of 50,000 non-domestic buildings are converted to zero emissions heat. The Heat in Buildings Strategy sets out an ambitious policy package to achieve this, including our commitment to invest at least £1.8 billion over the course of this parliament to help kick-start growth in the market and support those least able to pay; our intention to bring forward legislation, subject to consultation and to limits on devolved competence, that provides the regulatory framework for zero emissions heating and energy efficiency; and actions to expand our work with the supply chain to create new investment opportunities and create and support high value, local jobs.

We are maximising effort in devolved areas, but there are limits to what we can achieve on our own and critical policy areas remain reserved to the UK Government. While the UK’s new Heat and Buildings Strategy includes measures which will complement the comprehensive support package already available in Scotland the overall plan for action does not go far or fast enough. We will continue to work with the UK Government as it implements its strategy and call on it to accelerate action to support and enable delivery in Scotland, such as reforming the energy markets and amending the Gas Act.

In addition to the report I laid today, the Energy Savings Trust have published the report Renewable Heat in Scotland 2020 , which provides further insight into these figures. The Energy Savings Trust report is now available at https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/report/renewable-heat-in-scotland-2020/