Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02280 on 7 September 2021. 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02280 on 7 September 2021. 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02280 on‎ 7 September 2021. 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02280 on 7 September 2021. 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 NHS Scotland already has in place the electronic transfer of prescriptions between general practice and community pharmacy.

Our NHS Recovery Plan and Programme for Government commits to investing in developing new digital solutions such as ePrescribing and eDispensing to make the prescribing process paperless which will free up capacity for healthcare professionals so that they can see more patients and making it easier for patients to access their medicines quickly and safely.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 requires that all wild birds are protected. NatureScot has responsibility for the issuing of General Licences under Section 16(1) of the Act, which authorise the killing and taking of certain wild birds including their eggs for one or more of several reasons including public health and safety.

NatureScot held a consultation on General Licences between August and October 2019. Following this consultation, they removed several species, including herring, lesser black-backed and great black-backed gulls, from the 2020 General Licences either on the basis that there was insufficient evidence of the damage they caused; there are other alternative non-lethal solutions; or there are conservation concerns over their population status. Although some species have been removed, authorised persons will still be able to apply to NatureScot for a specific licence to control them or undertake lethal control, including nest and egg destruction.

The Scottish Government does not plan to review the law in relation to the management of seagulls because it is viewed as striking the correct balance between preserving public health and conserving the species.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland are provided with a digital device by the end of this parliament.

We are aware of the specific issue in which Norway decided to allow fully vaccinated visitors from the UK but only if their record of vaccination had a QR code. On 3 September 2021 we introduced QR codes to vaccination status records. People from Scotland, who are fully vaccinated, are now able to travel to Norway without requiring to quarantine for 10 days. People can either download or request a paper copy of their vaccination status from NHS Inform or call the Freephone Helpline 0808 196 8565.

As I noted in my statement to Parliament on 24 June, a single NHS Board first discovered in December 2020 that a small number of women who had subtotal hysterectomies had been wrongly excluded from the cervical screening programme and subsequently developed cervical cancer. All affected individuals or their families were directly contacted on 15 April 2021 by their NHS Board.

The following table shows how many school-aged children are in each local authority (as at September 2020) and how many devices have been distributed by councils using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21. Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those local digital inclusion schemes, therefore, the table below only shows devices distributed through the funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.