Chamber and committees

As announced in March, the recommendations from the Review will be taken forward by an Implementation Group which I am pleased to announce will be Co-Chaired by Dennis Robertson and a clinical lead that will be confirmed shortly.

I am also pleased to announce today that we are providing £5 million of funding to respond to the recommendations from the Review in this financial year. The majority of this funding will be provided to NHS Boards to support them respond to the increase in eating disorder presentations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is Recommendation 1 from the Review. This funding is being provided from the £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund.

In addition, in response to Recommendation 6 (Self-help Resources) and Recommendation 13 (Families and Carers) from the Review, we are also providing funding to Beat, the UK’s Eating Disorder Charity, to provide a wide range of support options such as support to families and carers of those with an eating disorder, support for children, young people and adults who are currently waiting to be seen by services and peer support services. We will shortly announce further details of this package of support.

The Scottish Government’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan was published in 2018. Many of the key actions in the Plan have been delivered, including the launch of Scotland’s social movement: ‘United to Prevent Suicide’; production of learning resources to support suicide prevention; and guidance to encourage, inform, and support local suicide prevention approaches. Pilot services to support those bereaved by suicide will go live this summer and work continues to develop processes for reviews of all deaths by suicide.

Our Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan sets out our commitment to work with COSLA and stakeholders to produce a new long-term suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. The new strategy will be outcomes-focussed, and its development will be directed by the voices of lived experience. It will be informed by data and evidence, and adopt a cross-government approach to ensure the Government continues to take all actions it can to reduce the number of people who die by suicide. The new strategy will be published in September 2022, supported by a full delivery plan.

In the meantime, continued focus, pace and evaluation on suicide prevention will be achieved by extending activities under the current Action Plan for a further year, up to the point the successor strategy is published. This approach has full backing from partners, including COSLA and the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group. This approach will be backed by additional spending on suicide prevention in 2021-22, through our £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund.

I want to thank our health and care staff for their magnificent work to date. The last few months have been enormously challenging, with the expansion of our vaccination programme and the on-going demands of continuing to provide vital services to those requiring care.

While we have made great strides forward in dealing with the challenges that the pandemic has brought, the spread and impact of Covid continues to urge the need for caution in protecting the capacity of the NHS. Case numbers have continued to increase slowly over the last few weeks and our vaccination and Test and Trace resources have had to flex in response to emerging issues. All of this is taking place while our NHS continues to recover and so I want to continue with a measured and consistent approach to remobilising and renewing the vital services that we all rely upon. Additionally, we continue to be mindful of the impact on health and care staff, many of whom have been on the frontline of the Covid response for a considerable period.

It is clear that we need to continue to balance the capacity of the NHS to deal with Covid as well as the demands of emergency, urgent and planned care. With this in mind, I have decided that the NHS will remain on an emergency footing until at least 30 September 2021.

Following the publication of the recommendations from the Ministerial Working Group on Mortgage Lending and Cladding, we invited property owners living in buildings where safety concerns had been determined to submit an Expression of Interest in participating in the first phase of the Single Building Assessment. Over 300 Expressions of Interest were submitted. The selection of the buildings to be included in the first phase has been completed and building owners will be notified of the outcome this week.

The Single Building Assessment is a safety assessment on buildings with flatted properties with external wall cladding and will provide us with the clear evidence on the total need for remediation. All flatted properties will be covered; that’s around 770 high-rise buildings and many more at lower heights.

This approach will allow us to identify buildings that are at risk and if there are no problems identified, it will release people from safety and mortgage lending concerns. It will also save homeowners the hundreds of pounds they may otherwise have faced through paying for an individual EWS1. The costs of Single Building Assessment will be met by the Scottish Government.

Once the Single Building Assessment programme has been established we will target remediation at the buildings at most risk.

Amending Regulations were made to the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 today.

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 to remove the Republic of Ireland and the area of Bedford Borough Council from the list of areas to which the common travel area restrictions apply.

These regulations also add Manchester and Salford to the list of areas to which common travel area restrictions apply.

The Regulations have been published at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/ssi/2021/242 .

The Improvement Service published its latest Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Delivery Progress Report. The report is available on the Improvement Service website and linked on the Scottish Government ELC Joint Delivery Board web page.

This report provides an update on progress by local authorities towards the delivery of 1140 hours of funded ELC at the end of April 2021 as reported by local authorities, comparing this to their reported position throughout this academic year. As members of Parliament will be aware, the duty on local authorities to provide 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to all eligible children will come into effect in August 2021.

As the report sets out, local authorities continue to make good progress towards delivery, with an additional 10,510 children accessing 1140 hours since February 2021. The report also shows that the local authority ELC workforce in Scotland is reported to have increased by 7,178 FTE since academic year 2016/17, including an increase of 230 FTE since February 2021.

Following a revision to the Improvement Service data collection framework in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, data gathering is planned for the beginning of each academic term through to April 2022.

The Scottish Government has launched a 10 week consultation into New Year’s Day trading for large retail stores today.

The consultation is seeking the views of shop workers and retail businesses and their representatives on whether the current law should change so that large retail businesses must close on New Year’s Day, as they currently do on Christmas Day. I would encourage all relevant parties to access the consultation on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub to ensure their views are taken into account.

Amending Regulations were made to the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 today.

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 to provide a person designated by a Local Authority with a power of entry to enforce restrictions relating to stadia and events. .

The Regulations also reduce the required distances to be maintained between persons in Hampden Park, Glasgow and the Glasgow Green Event Zone during the UEFA EURO 2020 Championship period.

The Regulations have been published at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2021/238/contents/made

Prior to the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic, there were six Health Boards in Scotland who had been escalated to Stage 3 or above within the NHS Boards Performance Escalation Framework. This is the stage at which Boards are considered to require a higher level of support and oversight, from Scottish Government and/or other senior external support.

Boards can be escalated for a number of different reasons and can have more than one status, reflecting their individual positions. Reasons for escalation include:

• Financial position and financial management
• Operational Delivery/Performance
• Governance, leadership and culture
• Quality and safety

The six escalated Boards escalated were as follows:

• NHS Ayrshire and Arran
• NHS Borders
• NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
• NHS Lothian
• NHS Highland
• NHS Tayside

Following a recent review of escalated Boards by the Health and Social Care Management Board, and despite the challenges of responding to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the majority of Boards were found to have demonstrated sufficient improvement in relation to the issues which had led to their escalation to justify a reduction in their escalation status. The following table shows the changes which have now been made.