Chamber and committees

We have committed to the development of a new National Pharmaceutical Agency (NPhA), to improve links between the life sciences industry and the NHS, and ultimately improve patient care.

Initial scoping work has taken place, with further scoping work required to inform any planning for the future establishment of a NPhA. This work has been paused due to resource constraints.

There is a wide range of education and training programmes for those delivering palliative care suitable to their role. These training programmes encourage those delivering palliative care to be aware of cultural factors and how these can impact on individuals and their families.

Our draft palliative care strategy aims to build on this work and includes a number of recommended actions for the provision of palliative care education and training to support all healthcare professionals delivering palliative care services.

Scottish Government implements a number of measures to support rural NHS Boards’ digital infrastructure. These include:

• The Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN)
• A Strategic Digital Fund -For a number of years the Scottish Government has provided additional non-recurring funding to support local strategic digital developments, with a particular emphasis on ensuring continued funding for Highlands and Islands Boards to protect rural services
• Access to the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment platform - a standardised management tool for digital transformation. This platform enables NHS Boards to document progress, analyse results, identify priorities, and align with local and national digital and data strategies.
• Recent analysis of data from the Scottish Government/COSLA Digital Maturity Assessment shows both progress in electronic records management and areas for development at organisational and system wide level.
• The Scottish Government and COSLA have also developed a range of resources to increase the digital capabilities of the leadership and workforce thereby improving the ability to identify digital transformation opportunities and implementation.
• A Records Management Code of Practice was published in August 2024.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

We are continuing to work across the Scottish Government and with delivery partners, including Public Health Scotland and See Me, to ensure that employers across all sectors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to promote and support the conditions that enable good mental health at work.

Together, we are delivering a joint package of support for employers across Scotland to support mentally healthy workplaces, which includes:

• The ‘Supporting a Mentally Healthy Workplace’ employer platform, which was launched in August 2022 and signposts employers to a wide range of free mental health and wellbeing resources and information.
• The ‘Supporting a Mentally Healthy Workplace: National Learning Network for Employers’, which was established in March 2023 to complement the employer platform and to bring together employers of all sizes and across all sectors to share learning and experiences of supporting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
• Public Health Scotland’s Mentally Flourishing Workplaces Framework. Developed in collaboration with a range of employers, this aims to help employers identify what they can do to improve mental health support for their employees, and work together to be a mentally flourishing organisation.
• The See Me in Work Programme, led by See Me, Scotland’s anti-mental health stigma campaign. which provides online support for employers to enable them to create stigma-free and mentally healthy working environments.

Additionally, since 2019 Scottish Government’s Mental Health Directorate has provided funding to the Lifelines Scotland wellbeing programme, to support blue light responders – Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Ambulance Service – who have had difficult experiences in the course of their work which have affected their mental health and wellbeing.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport operates on a commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government and Ministers do not intervene in operational matters. Additionally, statistics regarding arrests in any location at a matter for Police Scotland.

It is the legal responsibility of the assigned Health Board or GP practice to act as the data controller for an individual's medical record. The data controller will monitor the data and rectify any discrepancies, in line with existing Data Protection legislation and processes.

Each NHS Scotland Health board has a privacy notice to inform the public of why and how they use information they are in control of and this can be accessed via their individual website.

Guidance is publicly available on NHS inform at: https://www.nhsinform.scot/care-support-and-rights/health-rights/confidentiality-and-data-protection/health-records/#viewing-your-health-records.

The Scottish Government continue to support all community pharmacy contractors, including rural pharmacies in Scotland by delivering the largest ever increase to funding for two years in a row. This settlement will deliver a total of £422 million in guaranteed funding for community pharmacies across Scotland in this financial year.

In addition, there is a Guaranteed Minimum Target Income for essential small pharmacies, most of which are rural, and a pharmaceutical needs weighting payment which acknowledges both demographics and deprivation associated with a patient’s postcode. This helps support rural pharmacies by ensuring they are not disadvantaged because of their location. In our strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ (2017) we committed to enhancing access to pharmaceutical care in rural communities, which included use of Attend Anywhere for pharmacist clinics, and use of Near Me to support access to and the delivery of pharmaceutical care in rural communities.

The Scottish Government does not centrally collect data on waiting times for accessing end-of-life care services across Scotland. Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments.

As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector will be involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to gather this data centrally.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data.

Over the counter medicines for common illnesses can be provided through the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service, may be prescribed, or may be purchased from community pharmacies, other retailers and online.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes reports on prescribing and dispensing of NHS prescriptions dispensed in the community. These reports include prescribed items as well as those that have been provided via Pharmacy First. The most recent Pharmacy First publication can be found online at NHS Pharmacy First Scotland 8 October 2024 - NHS Pharmacy First Scotland - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

Additionally, the most recent open data on Prescriptions in the Community contains dispenser level data which can be filtered for the relevant rural/urban locations and medicines if required. It can be found online at Monthly prescribing activity data - Data for October 2024 - Monthly prescribing activity data - Publications - Public Health Scotland Data about medicines that have been purchased by individuals is not collected by the Scottish Government or PHS.

In terms of general availability of medicines, shortages can occur at a local, regional, national, or global level. When supply issues relating to individual medicines or devices arise, that information is shared by NHS Scotland with the relevant networks within the service to help prescribers and dispensers meet patients’ on-going medical needs. The NHS Scotland Prescribing Advisers’ Network provides support to prescribers on the use of alternative products.

The pricing and supply of medicines, including the management of medicine shortages, is a reserved matter for the UK Government, and Scottish Government policy officials continue to engage with them to find lasting solutions to minimise the impact of medicine shortages.