Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of HPV vaccination and screening.

The latest published HPV vaccination uptake data from Public Health Scotland (PHS) shows that pupils living in the most deprived quintiles had lower coverage of the HPV vaccine compared with pupils from the least deprived quintiles. We are working with PHS and territorial Health Boards to consider what further actions can be taken to increase vaccination uptake, support those eligible for vaccination, and to address any inequalities in accessing immunisation services. Reducing vaccine inequalities is one of the three primary objectives in PHS’s recently published Scotland's 5-Year Vaccination and Immunisation Framework and Delivery Plan.

Completion of consent forms is required to participate in school vaccination programmes. We therefore welcome the return of the PHS marketing campaign, “chat.sign.protect”, which will build on the messages of last year’s campaign to raise awareness of vaccines offered in secondary school and encourage an increase in the numbers of parents and young people giving consent to be vaccinated.

Timed to coincide with the distribution of informed consent materials to young people, the campaign aims to increase understanding of why these vaccines are important, and the seriousness of the diseases they protect against, and encourages parents and carers to take action and sign consent forms to ensure our young people receive the protection offered by immunisation.

Addressing the inequalities in HPV uptake and maximising the opportunities for young people to receive the vaccine will be a primary focus of cervical cancer elimination work.

The Equity in Screening Strategy, combined with an action plan, was published on 27 July 2023. The vision of the strategy is for access for all eligible individuals, across the full screening pathway. The Strategy launched alongside the Equity in Screening Network which supports the strategy by capturing local and third sector research activity and allows individuals that work across screening to share evidence, best practice and learning around screening inequalities.

Several national projects are being supported by the Inequalities Fund of £1 million. This includes changes to national IT systems to improve engagement with participants. Research and learning from past projects has shown some ways to increase access to screening and uptake, including appointment reminders and targeted follow-up with non-responders.

As set out on 22 January 2024 in response to question S6W-24720 on 21 January 2024, the Scottish Government has established an Expert Group to lead on scoping work to consider and provide recommendations on how Scotland will work towards reaching the targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate Cervical Cancer.

As well as the Expert Group itself, three subgroups have been established to support the Expert Group in considering and analysing data on specific topics (vaccination, screening and cancer treatment). This will inform recommendations on how Scotland will progress towards Cervical Cancer elimination and when this could be achieved. These recommendations will be considered by the Scottish Government.

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

Tackling religious or race-based intolerance, including Islamophobia, is a priority for the Scottish Government. The Cross-Party Group’s report, Scotland’s Islamophobia - Update 2023, attributes three recommendations to the Scottish Government:

1. Integrate an understanding of Islamophobia into compulsory components of the Scottish education curricula and all teacher training education.

Curriculum for Excellence purposefully does not mandate curriculum content. However, this recommendation and the wider report will be considered in the context of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. The Cycle commenced in early 2024 and involves the review and update of each curricular area within Scotland’s curriculum.

In terms of teacher training, teachers in Scotland are required to meet the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Full Registration, found at: Document > The Standard for Full Registration- a commitment to the professional values of social justice, trust and respect and integrity is at the heart of this. The Standard recognises that our increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world faces many social challenges, and an effective, responsive and inclusive education system is vital if we are to address these. The Standard also explicitly states that social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities now and in the future.

2. The Scottish Government should ensure that the Public Sector Equality Duty is enforced in schools and provide additional training so that this can be better implemented and enforced.

Enforcement of the Public Sector Equality Duty is the responsibility of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), not the Scottish Government. The EHRC rightly operates independently. The Scottish Government does however encourage all organisations to appropriately implement the Public Sector Equality Duty. The guiding principles of our Learning Estate Strategy, which was co-produced with COSLA and other partners, also makes clear that learning environments should support the wellbeing of all learners.

3. The Scottish Government should fund and support organisations and initiatives that support social cohesion and integration, particularly for Muslim women.

The Scottish Government is committed to building resilient communities within which divisive narratives will not resonate. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to support social cohesion and integration, tackle hatred and promote inclusion. Turning specifically to Muslim women, the Scottish Government has provided over £150,000 in the current financial year to Amina, The Muslim Women’s Resource Centre to deliver a range of ambitions which address a number of issues including: violence against women and girls; children, young people and families’ intervention; adult learning and empowering communities.

The Scottish Government greatly values Muslim communities in Scotland and is committed to tackling Islamophobia in our society. Since the publication of the Report of the inquiry into Islamophobia in Scotland, the Scottish Government has worked towards adopting many of the relevant recommendations made by the Cross-Party Group (CPG), and progress continues to be made in their delivery. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to tackle all forms of hatred, including Islamophobia, and promote inclusion. This work is grounded in prevention, early intervention, evidence-based approaches and meaningful interaction with people who have lived experience of exclusion and hate.

Ice accretion is a world-wide problem affecting cable-stayed bridges in colder climates, and there is currently no effective solution for preventing it completely. While closures of the Queensferry Crossing due to ice accretion cannot be prevented entirely, we have taken forward research, which led to enhanced management procedures being developed. Now, when there is a risk of falling ice, a 6-point plan is implemented by our Operating Company BEAR Scotland. The plan includes enhanced patrols; heightened focus on prevailing weather conditions; increased data & intelligence gathering; pre-laying of traffic management and enhanced stakeholder communications.

Investment has been made to improve our capability to predict ice accretion. For example, new ice and climate sensors were installed on the bridge in August 2020. These, together with improved bespoke weather forecasts, have helped deliver early warning of conditions conducive to ice accretion. In addition, infrastructure improvements have recently been completed, which will allow traffic to be diverted onto the Forth Road Bridge more quickly.

Transport Scotland has worked in partnership with its Operating Company BEAR Scotland and industry experts to test potential solutions and mitigation measures for ice accretion on the Queensferry Crossing, including cable cleaning.

This work, supported by laboratory testing, showed that cleaning of the cables stays helps to reduce ice accretion. Whilst a clean cable may reduce ice accretion, this measure cannot prevent it entirely. This was confirmed by detailed inspection during the November 2024 ice accretion event, which found that ice had accreted to stays which had no visual detritus. Notwithstanding this, we believe that cleaning the cables is a worthwhile mitigation measure that should be completed periodically.

The Scottish Government remains committed to securing access to NHS dental services, and the draft budget published on 4 December includes an uplift of £65.2 million (14.6%) for primary care dental services, taking total funding to over half a billion pounds for the first time in 2025-26.

Official statistics published by Public Health Scotland show that, following reform, NHS dental services are performing well at a national level with almost 4 million courses of treatment delivered to patients between November 2023 and September 2024.

We recognise that in some areas, particularly within rural and island communities, access to NHS dentistry remains challenging despite our significant and continuing investment in the sector. This is why the Scottish Government is clear that payment reform must be the first step in a wider journey, with further action to target the drivers of reduced access, including actions to improve the size and sustainability of our dental workforce across Scotland.

I have therefore taken a leading role in bringing together the four nations on the actions required to increase NHS dental workforce capacity, including the review and reform of international pipelines.

The Scottish Government have invested heavily in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in recent years, which is why CAMHS staffing has increased by 59.1% in the last decade of this Government (+553.8 WTE). CAMHS workforce data is publicly available in NHS Education for Scotland (NES) Turas Data Intelligence at: NHS Scotland Workforce Data.

We work closely with all NHS Boards to help improve their performance across CAMHS, including to reduce their waiting times. Despite ongoing pressures, local CAMHS teams continue to respond well to demand, with statistics showing one in two children and young people referred to CAMHS start treatment within 6 weeks.

Whilst the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including staffing are in the first instance the responsibility of the relevant NHS Board. Decisions depend on the service needs of each board taking account of national, regional and local priorities, and we expect NHS boards to plan and provide safe, effective and high-quality care, in line with their statutory service provision and workforce planning responsibilities.

The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 commenced in April 2024 and aims to be an enabler of high-quality care and improved outcomes for service users in both health and care services by helping to ensure appropriate staffing for high quality care. The legislation does not prescribe minimum staffing levels or fixed ratios and does not advocate a ‘one size fits all’ ratio, which would be inflexible to local needs, based on a fixed point in time, and not consistently reflective of workforce, case mix or dependencies.

To better support workforce planning across NHS Scotland, in collaboration with NES Data Group & Centre for Workforce Supply (CWS), we have developed a workforce planning data modelling tool, which sits on the TURAS data intelligence system. The tool will enable greater understanding of the timing and size of current and projected workforce demand at a local, regional, and national level.

We also undertake a robust student intake planning process to determine the target number of pre-registration students to which Scottish universities should recruit in the following academic year to meet estimated future workforce demands. The process involves significant input from key stakeholders from across the education sectors, including Council of Deans of Health Scotland, NHS Education for Scotland (NES), NHS Board Planners, and Unions.

We will continue to work with our key partners to ensure the Health and Care (Staffing) legislation is implemented effectively across NHS Boards, including within CAMHS services.