Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government keeps medical workforce requirements, including in anaesthetics, under regular review and works with NHS Boards and partners to monitor workforce pressures and future service needs.

The consultant anaesthetics workforce has increased by 23.5% from 729.3 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) in June 2016 to 900.9 WTE in June 2026. As at June 2026, there were 43.2 WTE anaesthetics consultant vacancies across NHS Scotland, representing a vacancy rate of 4.6%, which is lower than the overall medical and dental consultancy vacancy rate of 6.4%.

In 2026, 76 anaesthetics specialty training posts were advertised, compared with 59 in 2025 and 49 in 2024. To date, 72 of these posts have been filled, with a further recruitment round still to take place.

The Scottish Government will continue to monitor workforce and training requirements in this specialty.

No formal assessment has been undertaken. However, Scottish Government officials recently met with officers from World Horse Welfare (WHW) and the British Horse Society (BHS) to discuss farrier provision and training in Scotland. At that meeting, the question of whether equine welfare in Scotland is being compromised by a lack of access to, or reduced availability of, registered farriers was discussed. Both WHW and the BHS advised that, presently, there are sufficient numbers of farriers to meet demand.

The importance of consistent messaging to the livestock industry has been frequently raised by key industry stakeholders. This has resulted in the creation of a Scotland Bluetongue communications group which is intended to be an industry lead group with Scottish government providing support where required. A proposal, “A National Bluetongue Preparedness programme, for Winter 2026-27” has been drafted by a group of stakeholders and is currently being considered by Scottish government officials and the wider stakeholder group as a framework for pushing the vaccination message. In addition to this Scottish Ministers and our CVO will continue to enforce the message of the importance of vaccination and will look to engage with farming media to keep the issue at the forefront of livestock keepers minds over the winter.

The Scottish Government has been clear that corridor care is unacceptable. We are working closely with Health Boards to address the underlying pressures that contribute to corridor care and to support its eradication across Scotland.

We recognise that achieving this will require a whole-system approach. That is why we published our Improving Flow Plan on 31 August 2026. As part of this work, we will collaborate with Public Health Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and NHS boards, including NHS Dumfries & Galloway, to develop appropriate arrangements for measuring and monitoring corridor care.

In terms of postponed operations, we understand that every last minute cancellation has a real impact on patients and their families. We have made it clear to NHS Boards that patients with the greatest clinical need should not have their operations cancelled. The Scottish Government is investing to expand access to the NHS in Scotland and our NHS is delivering thousands more operations, procedures and appointments compared to last year. We will continue to work with health boards to ensure capacity is used as effectively as possible so that fewer patients are impacted by last minute cancellations.

The Scottish Ambulance Service is also experiencing sustained pressure. These pressures include high service demand, increasingly complex cases, delayed discharge and exceptionally busy emergency departments. Whilst these are not unique to Scotland we recognise the impact to patients. The Scottish Government is clear that there should be no unnecessary delays in response, handover at hospital, or transfer between hospitals or care homes and we will continue to work with partners to improve performance.

The Scottish Government is aware that a number of NHS Boards have either expanded or are developing Long COVID services to include support for people with ME/CFS and other energy-limiting conditions.

Responsibility for the planning and operational delivery of services for people with long COVID, ME/CFS, post-viral fatigue and similar conditions rests with individual NHS Boards. The Scottish Government provides recurring funding to support specialist services for these conditions but allows NHS Boards flexibility to design and deliver models of care which meet the needs of their local populations. NHS Boards are best placed to provide detailed information on their service models.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-03600 on 6 October 2026. 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.

On 13 October 2026, the UCL Institute of Health Equity led by Sir Michael Marmot, in partnership with Public Health Scotland, published its report on Phase 1 of the Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland (CHES), titled A Fairer Healthier Scotland. It summarises progress to date of the work undertaken in the three collaborating places (Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire), as well as case studies, which have informed the recommendations made.

Good progress has been made to date in the three areas with learning being shared across Scotland:

• Aberdeen City: CHES has helped embed health equity into mainstream strategic planning, with the city’s revised improvement plan bringing activity together around five whole-system priorities, including fair work, poverty, homelessness and preventable deaths.
• North Ayrshire: CHES has combined local data with community insight to target action where inequalities are greatest. This has helped secure investment for the Three Towns and is supporting practical work on families, health and wellbeing and good jobs.
• South Lanarkshire: CHES has used neighbourhood-level data to pinpoint where inequalities are most pronounced, helping inform local planning, commissioning and the targeting of resources, with giving every child the best start identified as a priority.

Introducing Marmot Places in Scotland is a key action within the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Population Health Framework (PHF) – a 10-year cross-government and cross-sector framework to improve population health and reduce inequalities. As such, this work is helping to inform the continued implementation of the PHF for Scotland and also Scotland’s Public Service Reform Strategy. Scottish Government will consider the recommendations carefully with other PHF partners.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Bedrolite is an unlicenced cannabis-based medicine.

For any cannabis-based medicines to be prescribed for use in the NHS in Scotland, as with any other unlicensed medicine, clinical trials are essential to ensure that they are proven safe and effective before they can be considered for a licence and for a wider routine availability.

The Scottish Government continues to support the development of UK-based clinical trials which will help to build the evidence base for cannabis-based medicines.

It is an offence at section 1 of the Human Trafficking (Scotland) Act 2015 to recruit, transport or transfer, harbour or receive, exchange or transfer control over another person, or arrange or facilitate any of those actions, with a view to their being exploited.

Exploitation includes slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour, prostitution and sexual exploitation, the removal of organs and the use of force, threats or deception to induce the person to provide services of any kind, to provide another person with benefits of any kind or to enable a person to acquire benefits of any kind.

It is an offence at section 1 of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 for a person who has met or communicated with a child under the age of 16 on at least one earlier occasion to intentionally meet the child, travel with the intention of meeting the child or arrange for the child to travel with the intention of meeting them with the intention of engaging in unlawful sexual activity with or in the presence of that child (this is often referred to as a 'grooming' offence).

These offences can be committed where the communication or contact occurs through social media or messaging platforms in the same way as where any other means is used.

Depending on the facts and circumstances of the particular case, there are a range of other criminal offences that may be committed by a person who uses social media and messaging platforms to contact any person with the intent either of committing a criminal offence against them or seeking to involve them in criminal activity.

The Scottish Government keeps the law under continual review to ensure that it remains effective.