Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government conducted an initial survey of residential rehabilitation providers in Scotland and published the results in November 2021. This showed that, at that time, there were 12 reported beds in Highland and 6 in the Western Isles. None were reported in Orkney, Shetland or Grampian.

Through promoting healthy living by reducing alcohol misuse we can reduce the risk of developing some cancers. The Scottish Government published our Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 and initial Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-2026 in June 2023. There are specific actions in the action plan aimed at reducing the consumption of alcohol.

A Public Health Scotland evaluation estimated that our world-leading Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy has saved hundreds of lives, likely averted hundreds of alcohol-attributable hospital admissions and contributed to tackling health inequalities. We introduced an increase to MUP in September 2024.

We have commissioned Public Health Scotland to carry out a review of the evidence on restricting alcohol marketing and advertising. We will progress work in areas where evidence supports further action to address alcohol misuse and improve population health.

The following table provides the number of practices which have held General Medical Services contracts (sometimes called 17J practices due to the relevant clause in the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978) in NHS Highland, NHS Western Isles, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland, and NHS Grampian for each year since 2018.

Table 1 - Practices with General Medical Services contracts

I last met with Scottish Power on 29 October 2024 to discuss the Scottish Consenting Consultation.

Information about Ministerial engagements, overseas travel, car journeys, domestic travel and gifts received is also published on the Scottish Governments website: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

There are three key parts to our national approach to achieving improvements in treatment options and recovery pathways for residential rehabilitation; Investing in a significant increase in the capacity of residential rehabilitation services; Improving pathways into, through and out of rehabilitation services, in particular for those with multiple complex needs; Developing a standardised approach to commissioning residential rehabilitation services.

Scottish Government asked Public Health Scotland (PHS) to investigate the apparent decline in alcohol treatment numbers and PHS will publish their findings on 3 December 2024.

We are continuing to work with partners and stakeholders to develop a national specification for alcohol and drug treatment in Scotland. The national specification will build on the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment which will support the improvement of alcohol treatment in Scotland, mirroring the use of the Orange Book Guidelines for drug treatment.

In 2024-25, £112.9 million is being made available to ADPs. This funding is used to ensure that local services meet the needs of people who experience alcohol and drugs harms.

In 2023-2024, the number of statutory-funded residential rehabilitation placements increased to 938, the majority of which included alcohol use or co-dependency. This shows that we are on track to meet our commitment to 1000 people accessing public funding for residential rehabilitation by 2026.

Delivering sustainable, resilient, accessible and efficient services for the population, as highlighted by myself during the debate on NHS reform, can only be achieved by a significant change in the way we plan, organise, deliver and fund services. In response, we have begun over the past few months to reset and reform our ways of working to ensure coherence across our various levels, nationally and regionally. As a component of reform, this includes development of a new construct for our clinical networks, aligned to portfolios of care.

Our clinically led national and regional networks are an important vehicle in how we meet the challenges of implementing the National Clinical Framework and the wider reform agenda across NHS Scotland. The aims of the refreshed approach to the National Networks in NSD (and other areas which host networks) is to provide a clear and collaborative mechanism for planning and delivery of our services across Scotland and to ensure this valuable resource is supporting delivery of the National Clinical Framework and our wider programme of reform.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing high deer numbers in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. In addition to the Cairngorms National Park Authority deer management incentives pilot, NatureScot launched two pilot schemes led by this autumn to incentivise deer managers to increase deer culls in specific parts of Scotland.

These pilot schemes have been implemented this year in different parts of Scotland to test different approaches to incentives and to better understand the barriers to deer management.

While these pilots do not constitute a single national scheme, we will use the findings from them to inform decisions on future incentive schemes.

Protecting the planet is a clear government priority which is why we must ensure that resourcing matches the scale of work required to deliver a net zero Scotland by 2045, balancing that with a need to ensure efficiencies in our public services.

We continually review staffing and resourcing, to support our commitments and ensure that the government’s ambition for tackling climate change is delivered as part of our regular assurance processes.

In addition, there is oversight of resourcing of climate change activity through the Global Climate Emergency Programme Board.

We have been engaging with the shareholders of the Grangemouth Refinery business over many years on future options for the site, demonstrated in a track record support for low carbon technologies at the site. Via Scottish Enterprise, since 2021 we have supported a range of studies which explored the feasibility a bio-refinery at Grangemouth, as well as the use of low carbon hydrogen for fuel switching purposes. These studies are predecessors to the Project Willow study, which the business approached the Scottish Government with in early 2024 and is considering the enablers and blockers to deploying a range of low carbon technologies at Grangemouth.