Chamber and committees

The Menopause and Menstrual Health Workplace Policy, launched on 31 October 2023, is for NHS Scotland. There are 22 NHS Scotland Boards, who have all adopted this policy (each being separate employers). There are 124,032.8 whole time equivalent (WTE) female staff working across NHS Scotland and women represent 77.1% of the NHS Scotland workforce as of September 2024.

A campaign report evaluating the campaign on Endometriosis for young people in Scotland was provided by Young Scot in April 2023 which measured young people’s engagement with the campaign.

High engagement was achieved across the campaign webpages through social media and paid marketing:

• 2.3 million impressions which is the number of times a user sees a piece of content, regardless of whether they interact with it;
• 56,000 social media engagements which represents number of people interacting with the social media accounts and content; and
• 84,000 video views which reflects the number of times the video content was watched.

With regard to ensuring menstrual health, including endometriosis is included in the school curriculum, I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-30034, on 3 October 2024, and S6W-32189, on 23 December 2024. 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

A key way in which Scottish Government is looking to expand home healthcare services in rural areas is through the expansion of Hospital at Home.

Hospital at Home is a short-term, targeted intervention that provides a level of acute hospital care in an individual’s own home that is equivalent to that provided within a hospital.

There is strong clinical evidence for Hospital at Home, which has improved patient outcomes such as being able to manage their own care, being more independent and being able to keep their care package whilst receiving care. The service also reduces admissions to nursing homes and reduces the likelihood that patients will be living in residential care in the months after being in hospital.

All hospital at home services capture patient feedback via Care Opinion (www.careopinion.org.uk) as well as locally developed feedback forms. That information is used to understand the impact of their service and inform improvement.

Every Health Board in Scotland operates a Hospital at Home service for adults, including some of the most remote and rural areas of the country. Between April 2023 and March 2024 Hospital at Home Older People’s services treated 14479 patients. Specifically, services in Western Isles treated 383 patients and Oban treated 91.

Further expansion of the service was set out in the 2025-26 draft budget statement where set out plans to expand the number of Hospital at Home beds to at least 2,000 by December 2026.

Geographical Indication status for Scotch Whisky provides high levels of protection to the whisky sector, both in the UK and across the globe. Scotch Whisky has a global reach, and the industry itself through the Scotch Whisky Association has the expertise and knowledge to tackle instances of fake or misleading whisky which can damage the reputation of the product. There has been considerable progress made since 2018 by both government and the industry in this area particularly with the increase in use of lot codes.

Further to question S6W-33178 please see the following table which provides the number of street lamps replaced or upgraded on the A90 trunk road by year.

We acknowledge that there is an overall lack of data and evidence on women in fisheries for a number of reasons, and we agree that steps are needed to improve this. This is an important issue and many of these gaps will need to be filled in collaboration with the industry and the wider research communities.

The Commercial Fisher Social Survey Scotland pilot is testing methods to deliver a representative social survey with the goal of capturing diverse industry voices and addressing underrepresented groups like crew members and a range of onshore roles that women may be involved in.

The Marine Directorate has several formal stakeholder engagement forums where there are opportunities to discuss the performance of the Marine Directorate with fishermen, their representatives and fisheries businesses. These include the Fisheries Management and Conservation Group (FMAC), and Regional Inshore Fisheries Management Groups RIFG. Additionally, there are many ad hoc meetings with stakeholders and regular engagement through direct correspondence with relevant officials where the Marine Directorate’s activities and performance can be discussed.

Marine Directorate Compliance Operations portfolio publish inspection data with the latest data being published shortly. (Reporting statistics from marine and fisheries compliance - gov.scot) We will continue to develop the data we publish.

The Scottish Government provides funding to NHS Education Scotland (NES) to develop and run the National Digital Platform (NDP). The NDP supports storage, integration and interoperability of data making it easier for staff to record and share data across health and care systems.

Additionally, we provide funding to all territorial Boards to support the required investment for the six priority areas set out in our Digital Health and Care Delivery Plan: Digital Access, Digital Services, Digital Foundations, Digital Skills and Leadership, Digital Futures and Data-Driven services and Insights.

Further information on each of the six priority areas can be found here: Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2024 to 2025 - gov.scot

The Scottish Government does not have the powers to prosecute Marine and Fisheries offences, these powers lie with the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) who prosecute on our behalf. This is a technical point.

The 1967 Act is a parent act under which orders were made, it is therefore more likely that any offence would be taken against a subordinate order rather than the act itself. Other acts have also superseded the 1967 Act, such as the Fisheries Act 2020, which is where licensing powers comes from. Any licence breaches are therefore pursued under the 2020 Act.

Additionally, the Scottish Government has powers to issue Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) in lieu of reporting cases to the COPFS. Most cases where a penalty was deemed appropriate were dealt with in this way. Details of FPNs are published, link Reporting statistics from marine and fisheries compliance - gov.scot

Table detailing cases prosecuted under the 1967 Act or subordinate orders.

Health Boards are responsible for delivery of Scotland’s vaccination programmes, unless there are exceptional circumstances. This approach enables GP practices to focus on what only they can do.