Chamber and committees

Since agreement of phased funding, SAS have been actively recruiting staff at pace and increasing vehicles on the ground on a transition basis into priority locations across the country. Seven additional satellite stations have already been established, with a further three still to be established, enabling resources to be spread across busy urban areas to better match patient demand.

Alongside this, the service having been working in partnership to design new rosters. SAS are expecting new rosters to be implemented in April 2022 for the majority of locations across the East and North Regions. The West Region full implementation is expected to be concluded by the end of July.

Recruitment for phase 3 of the review has commenced and will enable SAS to increase their establishment by a further 162 staff as well as further increase our station locations and vehicles on the ground.

The Scottish Ambulance Service continues to provide data each year to Operational Research in Health (ORH) to continually update the model. This enables resourcing requirements to be modelled each year to take account of changes in the data and wider health and social care system, therefore the most recent modelling includes the impact of COVID 19.

In light of the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, the wellbeing of our health workforce, wherever they work, remains a key priority. The 2021/22 pay uplift saw staff receive an average 4% pay rise, the highest in the UK. The Scottish Government is committed to ensure that NHS Scotland nursing staff continue to benefit from the best pay and conditions in the UK.

In 2021-22, the Scottish Government made £12 million available to support the wellbeing of the workforce. This includes £8 million from the NHS Recovery Plan to provide ongoing wellbeing support for the workforce alongside an additional £4 million to provide further support to address winter pressures.

To complement this at a local level, we also have a range of resources including the National Wellbeing Hub, a 24/7 National Wellbeing Helpline, confidential mental health treatment the Workforce Specialist Service and funding for additional local psychological support. We are also providing further support for practical measures to aid rest and recuperation alongside additional resources such as Coaching for Wellbeing and grief and bereavement support.

Nursing and midwifery staffing is also at a record high, up by 13.1% since September 2006.

As set out in Scottish Water’s 2020-21 Annual Report, while thousands of projects were delivered in the 2015- 21 period there were 86 projects due by but not delivering benefits to customers at 31 March 2021. Scottish Water expects customers to be receiving the benefits of 57 of these projects by the end of the 2022-23 financial year, leaving 29 still to be completed.

Scottish Water is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd, Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd and Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd.

The £10m of equity invested by Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd in Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd (SWBS) was part of the precautionary funding facilities which were put in place for SWBS during 2020-2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be eligible to receive future dividends from Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd.

The expansion of the water charges reduction scheme (WCRS) from April 2021 is worth £86m across the 2021-27 period and it will provide support for over 470,000 households. The increase in discount from 25% to 35%, again from 2021, means that customers in receipt of the WCRS will be protected from price increases over the regulatory period. There are therefore no plans to review the scheme at this time but it will be part of the strategic review of charges ahead of the next regulatory period.

Scottish Water set out in its 2021 Delivery Plan its expectation that it would invest between £570m and £650m (excluding responsive repair activity) in 2021-22. Scottish Water forecasts that it will outturn in the upper half of this range.

Scottish Water Horizons Holdings limited acquired the PFI companies for £16.2m on 19 December 2018 (see note 11 to the Scottish Water’s financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2019). The value of bank debt as at 31 March 2022 will be c. £31m. Scottish Water is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd.

It is possible for Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd to pay dividends to Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd and this has been done in the past. It is not possible for Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd to pay a dividend to Scottish Water as Scottish Water is not a direct shareholder and this has not happened in the past.

It is possible for Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd to pay dividends to Scottish Water but this has not happened to date.

The mobile theatre unit, which opened at Gilbert Bain Hospital in Shetland in January 2022, is supporting access to treatment for cataract and orthopaedic patients, who have faced delays in receiving care due to the pandemic and may have otherwise had to travel to the mainland for their procedure. The mobile theatre unit will also allow normal levels of theatre activity to continue through Phase 2 of the NHS Shetland Ambulatory Care capital project which starts in April 2022, preventing waiting lists from increasing significantly during these essential building works.

Throughout the pandemic, health boards across Scotland have been working hard to ensure that vital care remains in place. Any pausing of non-urgent activity has regrettably but inevitably led to a build-up of numbers waiting for Outpatient appointment and/or Inpatient/Day Case treatment. We will continue to work with Boards to recover our NHS through a range of targeted actions to maximise capacity and efficiency, including through the use of mobile theatre units where appropriate.