I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33681 on 27 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

There are therefore no financial barriers to receiving optometry services.

All referrals to the hospital eye service from community optometry are electronic and enable the attachment of retinal images and other examination results to aid the triaging of the patients. In addition, since the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government has facilitated the use of technology to support remote consultations under General Ophthalmic Services which is likely to be of particular benefit to patients living in rural areas. The cloud-based national Electronic Patient Record is also being used by community optometrists providing the Community Glaucoma Service - an important technological initiative supporting safe and high quality care.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33695 on 27 January 2025.

In addition, the Scottish Government has not received correspondence with regards access to community optometry services for children living in rural and remote areas.

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 National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2006, as amended, do not require community optometry practices to be accessible for disabled people. However, the majority of practices are accessible. Where they are not, the Scottish Government provides an additional fee to practices for the provision of domiciliary care to eligible patients.

NHS Board’s baseline revenue allocations are set out annually in the Scottish Budget, as published on the Scottish Government’s website. In addition, resource and capital spending limits are reported in Board’s annual accounts, which are published on their websites.

The Scottish Government allocates funding to territorial NHS Boards based on the NRAC formula. The NRAC formula takes into account factors in addition to population levels, including excess costs of delivering healthcare in remote and rural areas.

Since 2006-07, baseline funding for health and social care has increased by 120% in cash terms and 37% in real terms.

Since 2012-13, over £3.5 billion of additional funding has been committed to those NHS Boards below their NRAC parity levels, ensuring all Boards remain within 0.6% of parity.

More information on the NRAC formula is available at: Resource Allocation Formula in Scotland - Finance - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on public transport to health facilities.

The Scottish Government's Transport to Health delivery plan aims to ensure access to healthcare facilities is fully considered within regional and local planning, including planning for our rural communities.

Our vision is that all disabled people can travel with the same freedom, choice, dignity and opportunity as other citizens. The Accessible Travel Framework launched in 2016, is focused on improving the overall journey experience for disabled people by removing the barriers which prevent them travelling.

The delivery plan for 2024-2026 has been published in early October 2024. This covers delivery for the final two years of the Framework, and includes Transport to Health as a workstream.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. You should contact the Scottish Ambulance Service directly.

The Scottish Government considers the varying needs of all parts of our population when developing plans and strategies, including the needs of people living in rural and island areas. We recognise that our rural and island communities have specific, place-based needs when it comes to the effective delivery of public services, including healthcare.

That is why we have established an NHS Board-led working group which is considering ways to improve delivery of safe, quality and sustainable healthcare services across rural and island Scotland.

More broadly, work is underway to develop a systematic approach to mainstreaming rural policy, the Rural Assessment Toolkit, which will support identifying and addressing the needs of rural communities and economies in our work.

Under the Islands Act 2018, the Scottish Government has a duty to consider issues that affect island communities in the development and delivery of all policies, strategies and services. We are also working with island communities and local authorities to develop a new National Islands Plan to be published later this year.

These workstreams support our endeavours to meaningfully improve outcomes for our rural and island communities across portfolios.

The requested information on what percentage of healthcare staff currently working in rural areas are locum staff, broken down by NHS board is not centrally held.

On 30 October, the Scottish Government published the Transport to Health delivery plan which sets out commitments against transport and healthcare across the work of Health and Social Care and Transport Scotland. The plan was informed by the 2019 Transport to health and social care report prepared by the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) on behalf of Ministers.

As set out in the plan, we will support Regional Transport Partnerships to develop their own plans around Transport to Health. An example of this will be continuing to support the work of the Health and Transport Action Plan led by NESTRANS and partners in Aberdeenshire.

Transport Scotland have included Transport to Health as one of seven thematic workstreams in their approach for delivery of the Accessible Travel Framework.