Chamber and committees

The Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme (SMHSS) expands and improves on the UK Nursery Milk Scheme, which it replaced in August 2021. It is the only Scheme in the UK offering children a healthy snack of fruit or vegetables, in addition to milk, promoting better health outcomes for children through a nutritious and varied diet. For those children who cannot drink cow’s, goat’s or sheep’s milk for medical, ethical or religious reasons, the SMHSS offers a specified non-dairy alternative.

Most recent data from local authority partners (April 2023) shows uptake of around 3,300 registered childcare settings and around 140,000 children. Spend on delivering the SMHSS amounted to £6.9 Million in financial year 2021-22 and £13.8 Million in financial year 2022-23.

The Scottish Government had made clear our commitment to supporting Gillian Mackay MSP on her Abortion Services Safe Access Zones (Scotland) Bill. The First Minister and I met Ms Mackay to reaffirm that commitment during the First Minister’s first week in office.

I meet regularly with Ms Mackay to discuss the Bill, and to offer support and input at each stage of the process, most recently the publication of the consultation analysis and final Bill proposal. This support will continue as the Bill is introduced to, and progresses through, Parliament.

All funding for services delivered by the community pharmacy network, including for Pharmacy First Scotland, is paid directly to independent community pharmacy contractors as part of the remuneration arrangements. No funding is paid directly to Community Pharmacy Scotland.

NHS Pharmacy First Scotland funding forms part of the overall remuneration package. These details are published annually on the SHOW website - SHOW - Scotlands Health On the Web - Publications

The remuneration Global Sum was set at the following in each year from 2018-19

2018-19 - £180.959 million

2019-20 - £183.559 million

2020-21 - £188.148 million

2021-22 - £197.977 million

2022-23 - £205.489 million

The NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service was launched in 2020-21. Funding allocated from the remuneration Global Sum for each year since was as follows:

2020-21 - £25.8 million

2021-22 - £27.5 million

2023-23 - £30.8 million

The pharmaceuticals sector plays a crucial role in the growth and development of the life sciences sector and as a result is a key contributor to the growth and development of the Scottish economy.

The manufacturing of pharmaceuticals sector is an important source of entrepreneurial activity, supporting GVA and employment throughout Scotland. The pharmaceuticals sector is a key driver of innovation and productivity in the economy with a GVA per head of employment of £200,700 in 2020, more than 3 times the Scottish average.

Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy was published on 6 June 2023 and it identifies a number of key areas where Scotland has a competitive advantage and a strong research and business base. Health & Life Sciences is one of these areas and one of four broad innovation themes on which future activity will focus. The Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting the further growth and scaling of one of the biggest life sciences clusters in Europe and the pharmaceutical industry will play a crucial part in the sector’s development of world leading excellence, bringing in investment and creating jobs and opportunities across the country.

The Scottish Government's recently published National Innovation Strategy identifies Scotland's Health and Life Sciences sector as an innovation priority area, and outlines a tailored cluster approach to each of the innovation priority areas in order to scale innovative activity to drive economic outcomes, attract additional investment and elevate Scotland's impact on a global stage. The National Innovation Strategy further outlines encouragement and support for the breadth of Scotland's businesses to innovate, helping our business base to adopt the innovative technologies and processes that will help increase their resilience and capacity for growth. The Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness has also underlined the importance of continued support for innovation in life sciences and public health research in its Interim Report, published in August 2022. A strong and resilient life sciences sector, with highly innovative clusters involving our business and research base, will help Scotland be able to respond to upcoming challenges including any potential future pandemics.

As our spring campaign officially ended on 30 June, the level of stock held in Scotland is minimal, after a programme where we delivered over 490,000 doses. The number of doses currently held by NHS Scotland is calculated to be around 96,000.

In addition there remains residual stock allocated to Scotland within the ownership of UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) that has not been drawn down by NHS Scotland health boards.

The Scottish Government engages with the pharmaceutical industry directly as well as via the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, and through Four Nations partners as part of UK-wide pandemic preparedness and resilience measures. This has ranged from long-standing arrangements to build and maintain stockpiles of medicines to address challenges from potential influenza pandemics to more recent measures to establish stockpiles of medicines and associated consumables for the response to COVID-19. Collaborative working across the UK also includes working in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to develop onshore vaccine manufacturing capacity, with potential for pandemic deployment.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to successfully support pandemic preparedness and resilience in Scotland, as described in the answer to question S6W-19343 on 11 July 2023.

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 Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office invests through NHS Research Scotland in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) to support the recruitment of people into health research studies and clinical trials. People interested in participating in health research can register to SHARE in order to be contacted about studies to which they might be suited.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ability to attract and deliver innovative clinical research studies is vital to improving healthcare and patient outcomes. We therefore welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials in the UK. We will engage with partners across the UK in the coming weeks to understand how we can work together to ensure the review’s recommendations are considered for Scotland.