Chamber and committees

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO).

CSO funds research projects via its Translational Clinical Studies (TCS) Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research (HIPS) Committee

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/grant-funding/response-mode-funding-schemes/

CSO funds capacity building research via its Fellowship Funding programmes

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/fellowship-funding/

Research funding is not allocated to any particular condition and CSO funds research across the clinical spectrum. All applications go through a process of independent expert review to allow funding decisions to be made. Applications on Brain Tumours are welcomed and CSO's role is well known across the Health and Care research community in Scotland

In 2023-24 the following funding was awarded specifically for research in Brain Cancer

TCS/23/18 - Assessment of Brain Tumours with Dynamic T2* and Lactate MR under Oxygen Challenge to Evaluate Aerobic and Anaerobic Metabolic Status of Gliomas

£299,918

Tessa Jowell Fellowship in Neuro-oncology

£44,237

In addition, CSO provides infrastructure funding to support the delivery of clinical studies in the NHS in Scotland. In 2023-24 the cancer-specific component of this infrastructure funding was £1,112,434. This figure includes funding for the NHS Research Scotland Cancer Research Network and the CSO component of funding for the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow (co-funded 50:50 with Cancer Research UK). The purpose of this funding is to support the delivery of early and later phase cancer clinical studies, including in Brain Tumours.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the offshore oil and gas industry on a range of topics, including workforce planning. For example, the First Minister last met with Offshore Energies UK along with myself in September 2024 and this included discussion of jobs in the context of the energy transition.

In the unfortunate event of any employees facing redundancy, the Scottish Government will always offer and provide support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, PACE. Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-33241 on 24 January 2025. 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

The commitment in the Stroke Improvement Plan to publish a plan for further development of the national thrombectomy service in the second half of 2023 was published in December 2023, available at: Thrombectomy Service Update and Expansion Outline

It should be noted that, since publication, the National Thrombectomy Programme Board has, on the advice of NHS National Services Division, moved away from an options appraisal approach in favour of maximising access to thrombectomy and a stepwise approach to service expansion.

(a) The Scottish Government remains fully committed to increasing the number of GPs by 800 by 2027.

The aims contained in the document Neurological Care and Support in Scotland: A Framework for Action 2020 – 2025 are applicable to healthcare delivery across Scotland. Through this we have supported a number of national initiatives to improve care and reduce variation, including:

• Self-evaluation by all NHS boards against the General Standards for Neurological Care and Support 2019. Development of national care pathways for headache and Functional Neurological Disorder, with care pathways for further conditions in development
• Agreement of a Business Case and funding to adopt the Scottish Epilepsy Register across Scotland, improving the safety and quality of care for people with epilepsy
• Development of a neurology nurse specialist competency framework
• Formation of collaborative improvement networks which include NHS boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships, third sector organisations and people with lived experience to encourage consistent adoption of the successful approaches funded through the Framework
• Development, by third sector partners, of a toolkit for the consistent commissioning of social support for people with epilepsy
• Improved provision of public information on individual neurological conditions through the development and/or revision of 23 NHS inform webpages
• Through national charities, development of nationally-accessible sources of self-management support for people with MS, spina bifida hydrocephalus, progressive supranuclear palsy, cerebral palsy and non-epileptic seizures
• Re-development of the internationally recognised neurosymptoms.org web resource to support people with Functional Neurological Disorder
• Dissemination of nationally-accessible clinician education resource for ME/CFS

We remain committed to reducing harm for individuals from the use of unsafe paraphernalia and will continue collaborating with stakeholders and harm reduction services on this matter.

The Digitisation of records is an operational responsibility of individual Health Boards and GP practices.

All Health Boards in Scotland receiving baselined funding from the Scottish Government toward their neurology services. As part of Planned Care funding, the Scottish Government has also invested £217,000 in total towards improving waiting times in NHS Tayside and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Through the Neurological Framework, the Scottish Government has given direct investment to numerous territorial Health Boards to undertake projects focusing on neurological care, in line with the Framework’s commitments. Health Boards that have received direct investment are:

• NHS Ayrshire and Arran
• NHS Forth Valley
• NHS Grampian
• NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
• NHS Lanarkshire
• NHS Lothian
• NHS Orkney
• NHS Tayside

Third sector organisations have also been awarded funding to work in partnership with a number of statutory organisations to better integrate services, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Fife. The Migraine Trust has worked in partnership with seven NHS boards to improve treatment for migraine in community pharmacy.

A full list of projects funded through the Neurological Framework can be found here.

A final report on the Neurological Care and Support in Scotland: A Framework for Action 2020-2025 will be published by the Scottish Government when the Framework reaches the end of its agreed lifespan. An assessment of future priorities for neurological conditions will be included.