In 2024-25, we allocated over £450,000 to gynaecology from our £30 million targeted investment in planned care, delivering around 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.

The 2025-26 Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for Health & Social Care, including a commitment to provide £200 million to help reduce waiting times and improve capacity, and gynaecology is being targeted as a key priority area for additional funding.

Our Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, and I have been meeting with clinicians to better understand the challenges that currently exist within gynaecology services, to discuss innovative solutions, and to reiterate our commitment that timely access to gynaecology services is a key priority area for the Scottish Government and for the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government commissioned Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has developed a strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG) for Gynaecology, which promotes multidisciplinary team working and supports local adoption of service improvement programmes. This group has supported several new and innovative pathway developments, many of which are now being successfully scaled up across Scotland, including Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) and Patient Initiated Review (PIR).

While the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, it is NHS Boards and healthcare professionals locally who have responsibility for both service delivery and ensuring people receive the right care for them, taking into account relevant guidance, local service needs and priorities for investment.

It is therefore for NHS Boards to determine what clinical interventions they offer, while giving regard to the considerations above.

The majority of Scottish health boards participated in the 2022 UK Parkinson’s Audit which measures the quality of Parkinson’s services against international best practice. This includes Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) data from people who use Parkinson’s services.

The 2022 Audit showed Scotland outperforming the UK in terms of future care planning, and access to essential professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing the availability of safe and effective medicines that people in Scotland would benefit from. The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) assesses the clinical and cost effectiveness of newly licensed medicines on a once for Scotland basis and publishes advice for Health Boards to consider. It is expected that Health Board Area & Drug and Therapeutics Committees (ADTCs) will consider making a SMC recommended medicine, or an equivalent, available on their local or regional formulary for routine prescribing within 90 days of SMC advice being published.

Health Boards are expected to apply common principles and processes in the introduction of newly licensed medicines to facilitate consistency of approach to local decision-making. The decision to prescribe a medicine, and which medicine to prescribe, is entirely for the clinician in charge of a person’s care, having considered their clinical condition, their safety, and any relevant clinical guidance.

Delivery of the health and social care app for Scotland is being taken forward by NHS Education Scotland (NES) as part of the wider Digital Front Door programme. The majority of costs to date have been on mobilising the team required and developing the Outline Business Case. NHS NES staff have participated in the Civtech Challenge, which has allowed NES to understand what is required to develop the app in a way that integrates into Scottish Government plans to digitise postal communications. More information about this can be found at: https://www.civtech.scot/civtech-9-challenge-8-secure-individualised-and-effective-communications-channel.

Social Security Scotland continues to review and improve how people access its service, including how the organisation communicates with applicants and clients.

The application forms for Adult and Child Disability Payment were designed and developed in consultation with stakeholders to ensure the values of dignity, fairness and respect were embedded throughout.

The application forms allow clients, and their representatives, to tell the organisation how they would prefer to be contacted. It also asks specific questions to help Social Security Scotland understand and respond to any additional accessibility needs.

Through client feedback surveys and panels, clients have told Social Security Scotland they would like choice in how they are contacted. With the client, or their representative’s permission, Social Security Scotland will automatically acknowledge receipt of an application form and provide updates via text and/or email as the application proceeds through the key stages.

The latest Client Survey shows the majority of Adult and Child Disability Payment respondents said their experience of applying for disability benefits was “very good” or “good”. The full survey results can be found at: Social Security Scotland - Client Survey 2023-2024

We have a world-leading higher education sector to be proud of, and I value greatly the contribution that universities make to our economy and society. Ministers have been clear that the Scottish Government’s position on tuition fees will not change. The policy ensures that access to higher education is based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay.

The Scottish Government is aware of a range of views from football supporters when it comes to the availability of alcohol in football stadiums, and recognises there is an argument for football supporters to be afforded the same opportunities as fans at other sporting and cultural events. However, we currently have no plans to amend the legislation but remain open to discussions on this issue and will consider any proposals put forward.

Information is not held centrally. Courses ran by colleges are decided by colleges, as such individual colleges would have this information.

Local authorities in Scotland have the powers to issue Penalty Charge Notices if the vehicle has been left beyond the period of parking which has been paid for, as per the Road Traffic Act 1991. Legislation to allow an additional 10 minutes grace period has not been considered in Scotland as there has not been sufficient interest from members of the public or local authorities to do so, however all local authorities can use their own discretion whether to apply a grace period or not.

The Women’s Health Plan sets out that healthcare for women should be holistic, inclusive, respectful, centred around the individual and responsive to their needs and choices.

In 2023, we carried out research on ‘Women's experiences of discrimination and the impact on health ’ so that we can better understand the lived experience of women and girls in Scotland and the discrimination they have experienced when seeking healthcare.

Through the Women’s Health Platform on NHS Inform we have created resources that can be used by women and girls and healthcare professionals to support shared decision making and a patient centred approach. This includes symptom questionnaires on menopause and menstrual health and clinical tools such as the Endometriosis Care Pathway and the Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Pathway to support informed discussions and provide better understanding of the next steps on a healthcare journey.

We have also funded the development of educational resources to support health professionals to learn more about menstrual health, endometriosis and menopause, the symptoms and treatment options.