Chamber and committees

This data is not centrally available; whilst Public Health Scotland publish the total number of patients waiting for specialist mental health services, detail of the individual types of assessment or diagnosis is not held. The publications for both CAMHS and Psychological Therapies waiting times for the quarter ending December 2021 can be found at Publications - Public Health Scotland .

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland. Scottish Government have also commissioned Directors of eHealth, working with others including Public Health Scotland, to work to improve digital infrastructure, applications and data to report on all standards within the National Neurodevelopmental Specification.

The Scottish Government have also established the National Autism Implementation Team , in partnership with Queen Margaret University, to support Health and Social Care Partnerships to consider best practice and support improvement through the redesign of autism diagnostic services.

The National Implementation Team is supporting NHS Boards to examine diagnostic pathways for autism and establish regional experts to assist with improving tiered autism specialisms across health boards.

Within the Scottish Government funding of health research falls under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office.

Following an independent expert review process, 9 projects were funded through the CSO's Long-term effects of COVID-19 call Long Covid Call – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

Final reports will be published on the CSO website upon completion of the projects. All the projects are scheduled to complete in Q1/Q2 of 2023.

Project final reports are the result of a collaborative effort between the individual project teams and members of the CSO Public Engagement Group who work together to ensure the reports are written in accessible language. There is therefore an inevitable short delay between the project end date and the publication of the final report.

The eligibility criteria for new COVID-19 treatments were developed by an independent expert working group commissioned by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, based on detailed clinical evidence. The criteria are set out in a UK-wide clinical commissioning policy . The policy targets those higher risk individuals who have the potential to both be least likely to generate a material immune response to vaccines and be at highest risk of disease progression, hospitalisation and death.

The UK Department of Health and Social Care has recently established an expert panel to provide advice to the UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) on which patient cohorts should be eligible for access to COVID-19 treatments, including whether changes should be made to which patient cohorts are currently eligible for direct access to antivirals to reduce the risk of hospitalisation. More information about the Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel, including how to submit an enquiry to the panel can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/covid-19-therapeutics-clinical-review-panel

General information on the arrangements for direct access to COVID-19 treatments in Scotland can be found on NHS Inform .

As at the week beginning 11 April 2022, over 6300 non-hospitalised individuals had received COVID-19 treatments (oral antivirals or monoclonal antibody treatment) in Scotland since 22 December 2021.

Adults and children (aged 12 years and above) are eligible to be assessed for their suitability for new COVID-19 treatments if they:

? have symptoms of coronavirus that started in the last 5 days with no signs of clinical recovery;

? are a member of one of the patient groups considered at high risk from coronavirus and with a clinical condition prioritised for treatment; and

? coronavirus is confirmed by a positive lateral flow device (LFD) or PCR test.

Some COVID-19 positive individuals who meet the eligibility criteria will decide not to receive antiviral treatments, or may be unable to, for example due to other medications they are taking.

The information on those who were eligible for treatment and who received it within five days and those who did not receive it within five days is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-05524 on  24 January 2022 and S6W-07942 on 29 April 2022. 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 Model Retirement policy (included within the Supporting the Work-Life Balance PIN policy 2015 ) asks that all NHS Scotland Boards arrange an individual interview with a member of staff 9 months before a proposed date of retiral in order that a ‘Retiral Plan’ may be drawn up. Each circumstance is different, however, this would provide an opportunity to discuss retaining staff where possible.

The current suspension of abatement rules is directly linked to the period of pandemic response. The Scottish Government will keep the suspension of these rules under review, however, because public service pensions policy is only executively devolved to the Scottish Government, any extension to the suspended provisions would require the consent of the UK government.

Posts are banded locally according to the procedure agreed in partnership. Banding is based on the information in the agreed Job Description, not on job title. A fully qualified and experienced District Nurse would normally be matched to a Band 6 profile, unless they also undertook significant leadership/management or delivered advanced clinical practise. However, information on specific banding outcomes is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07914 on 28 April 2022. 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 Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011 (SSI 210 (15) Staffing) sets out a requirement for care service providers to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, welfare and safety of service users:

‘A provider must, having regard to the size and nature of the care services, the statement of aims and objectives and the number and needs of service users…ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service in such numbers as are appropriate for the health, welfare and safety of service users.’

Where these requirements are not met, action can be taken by the Care Inspectorate as the regulator of care services in Scotland, including formal enforcement action if necessary.

The Care Inspectorate inspects services to ensure that people experience high-quality care, and that care services are making a positive impact on people’s lives, based on their needs, rights and choices. The Care Inspectorate’s quality framework for care homes for adults and older people includes a Quality Indicator 3.3: Staffing arrangements are right, and staff work well together . This includes the extent to which the skill mix, numbers and deployment of staff meet the needs of people and the service has an effective process for assessing how many staff hours are needed.

The Care Inspectorate retains the discretion to impose conditions about staffing, or any other matter, on any individual care service where that is necessary to ensure people experience high quality care.