Chamber and committees

We are in daily contact with Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) facing the greatest challenges and are monitoring the situation closely. Health Boards and HSCPs have provided assurances that people in need of the most urgent care will continue receiving care during this challenging period.

We are working with local partners to address these pressures at a local and national level, including putting in place measures to support recruitment and multi-disciplinary working. Some of the immediate actions we have taken include: funding support to advertise vacant posts on a dedicated social care webpage; and targeted communication with Further and Higher Education nursing students and Social Work students, to encourage applications to join the workforce.

We have allocated an additional £380 million to Health Boards to help with costs arising from the pandemic. This comes on top of the £1.7 billion already provided to Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships last year.

For unpaid carers, we have invested an additional £28.5m for local carer support in this year’s budget, bringing total investment in the Carers Act to £68m per year. The previous Cabinet Secretary wrote to authorities in March to highlight the importance of using this additional funding to expand carer support. We also added a further £1.1m last year to the annual £3m voluntary sector Short Breaks Fund and have committed an additional £570,000 this year, enabling more families/carers and young carers to take a break from caring.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as this is an operational matter for Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority. I have therefore asked the Park Authority’s Chief Executive to write to the Member to provide details.

Self-Directed Support (SDS) is Scotland’s mainstream approach to social care that seeks to give unpaid carers and people receiving care and/or support flexibility, choice and control to meet their own personal outcomes, using a human rights based approach. In March 2021 the SDS Framework of Standards was published. This enables and encourages both local authorities and individuals to use Self-Directed Support in a flexible manner, enabling consideration out with traditional support services that may have been previously provided.

Scottish Government also funds independent support providers across Scotland to support people to arrange support that meets their needs by providing advocacy, information and advice on social care at local levels.

The Self-directed Support (Direct Payments) (Scotland) Regulations 2014 set out that people in receipt of a direct payment, Option 1 of Self-directed Support, may employ family members where this is deemed appropriate in certain prescribed circumstances. However, if the family member is acting as Power of Attorney or Guardian and managing a direct payment, it is prohibited under the Section 9 of the Direct Payment regulations for family members to be employed as personal assistants.

Local authorities should consider requests to employ family members on a case by case basis, taking into account the family member’s health, their capacity to provide the required care, and other welfare and wellbeing factors.

The Scottish Government Covid-19 Advisory Group met on
‎ 5 August 2021 and is due to meet again on 9 September. Papers and minutes are published following meetings, providing time for appropriate permissions to be sought.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02190 on
‎ 31 August 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 Gateway Review was focused on activities that lie on the critical path for delivery of DRS, such as establishment of the scheme’s infrastructure and implementation of the regulatory function. This determined which organisations would be interviewed during the short timeframe of the review. The Scottish Government has also met with other sectors, including hospitality and small producers, to understand the impact of the pandemic on them and to ensure that their views are taken into account.

Guidance on the provision of wheelchairs on short-term loan was published five months ago, on 23 March 2021 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/guidance-provision-wheelchairs-short-term-loan/ ).

Officials are meeting with the Red Cross in September to discuss options for an evaluation, and how the Red Cross can support the Scottish Government and health and social care partnerships. Before any evaluation commences health and social care partnerships, along with their store services, require sufficient time to put measures in place to ensure the guidance is fully implemented, a part of this work will be to develop processes to monitor and evaluate service provision.

The Scottish Government has also launched a review of the wider guidance on the provision of equipment and adaptations, which was originally published in 2008 ( https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/CC2009_05.pdf ). The review is now moving to the consultation phase, with online events planned for 25 August and
‎ 1 September 2021 and an online consultation due to launch in September.

To accompany the guidance a range of self-assessment tools are also being developed which, following publication of the revised guidance, officials will consider how these could be used to support an evaluation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02400 on 31 August 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 .

In the period when the hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES) was prescribed to pregnant women no central information system for drugs prescribed to individuals existed. Consequently, information on the precise number of women exposed to and who went on to develop cancer is unknown.