Chamber and committees

The consultation on Regulation and Licensing of Non-surgical cosmetic procedures will be published tomorrow, 20 December 2024 at 10:00. I would encourage members of the public to respond to the consultation, to help us to prepare regulations for non-surgical cosmetic procedures that are proportionate, robust and future-proofed. The consultation will close on 14 February 2025.

The supply of sharps boxes and management of their return is linked to prescribing practice and contract arrangements between the health board and its contractors. Therefore, specific arrangements in any health board area would require to be requested from the local health board or, for patients, their prescribing physician would advise as to arrangements.

The Independent Working Group on Antisocial Behaviour is reporting to Ministers, COSLA and Police Scotland by the end of 2024. Its remit was to: Consider the effectiveness of current approaches to understanding, preventing and tackling antisocial behaviour and if, and how, these could be improved to develop a holistic long term strategic approach which will help to improve the lives of communities across Scotland. This should include consideration of whether a preventative approach would be appropriate and how victims of antisocial behaviour are supported and whether this could be improved.

As part of its engagement work it met with a number of representatives from the transport sector who had also been invited to respond to a national data survey commissioned by the Working Group. This report will be published in the first quarter of 2025 and will be considered by Scottish Ministers, Police Scotland and Cosla prior to a formal response.

Transport Scotland is exploring legal means to suspend access to concessionary travel for perpetrators of persistent antisocial behaviour of anyone of any age. Whilst this is being progressed as a priority, the National Concessionary Travel Schemes in Scotland are provided on a universal statutory basis. Therefore, detailed and thorough consideration of any process and penalty must be undertaken to ensure consistency and fairness.

Both Ministers and Scottish Government officials are in regular contact with senior representatives of all NHS Boards, including NHS Grampian.

The Scottish Government has been working very closely with NHS Grampian in relation to the recent pressures on local services. I attended a meeting with the Board leadership team, including the Chair and Interim Chief Executive, and local elected representatives on 29 November 2024 to discuss the Board’s operational resilience plan and cover the actions underway to resume business as usual at the earliest opportunity.

The Scottish Government does not request this information from hospitals regarding their individual systems and therefore does not hold it.

It is not possible to provide information on the number of patients who were newly diagnosed with COPD following an emergency admission.

Figures presented in Table 1 provide the number of emergency inpatient hospital stays associated with a main diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by year.

Table 1

Scottish Ministers are currently considering all the available evidence, including on technology use. An announcement will be made once Ministers have reached a final decision.

Scottish Government is aware the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency is considering amendments around its call centre service to align with plans for wider organisational transformation. SEPA has not raised any emerging risk, or issue with significant implications for its operation or governance with regards to changes to the 24-hour call centre.

Scottish Government is not aware of any other proposal to alter out-of-hours contact services, nor has information been provided to Ministers from any other public body.

Ministers would not routinely be informed of changes to contact services as this would be an operational matter for the body concerned, based on evaluation of the service, customer demand/experience and evolving automation of communication channels such as the use of bots and Artificial Intelligence.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who reply in writing within 20 days.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who reply in writing within 20 days.