Chamber and committees

The Network and Information System Regulations set out standards which NHS Scotland Health Boards must comply with. Boards must test themselves against these standards which cover managing security risk, defending systems against cyber-attack, detecting cyber security events, and minimising the impact of cyber security incidents. This is in addition to mandatory information security and data protection risk/impact assessments and routine penetration testing on all major IT systems.

The NHS Scotland Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE), works nationally across health boards to prioritise the security capabilities of existing technologies and deployment of new tooling. This allows real time discovery of vulnerabilities and potential issues across a national view.

An Implementation Delivery Group has been set up which has held two meetings on 21 February and 20 March 2024, with a third meeting scheduled for the end of April.

Membership of the Implementation Delivery Group consists of representatives from clinical services, third sector and lived experience, under the chairmanship of Jim Miller, the Chief Executive of NHS 24.

Unauthorised access to information by the cyber threat actor was contained to information on the NHS Dumfries and Galloway network.

The Scottish Government fully understands the pressures that hospices are currently facing. The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health engages regularly with this sector, and has visited a number of hospices and met with hospice leaders over the last few months.

Integration Joint Boards are responsible for the planning, and commissioning of adult palliative care services, including hospices, using the integrated budget under their control. We have invested over £2 billion in the 2024-25 budget for social care and integration, delivering on our Programme for Government commitment to increase social care spending by 25% over this Parliament. Despite this significant investment the financial climate remains extremely challenging and we are working with partners to understand and address the challenges, within the context of a finite budget.

Access to continuing professional development and education for community children’s nursing staff in Scotland is vital as it enables children to receive specialist care within a setting that is familiar and comforting to them. However, it is the responsibility of higher education institutions to develop and deliver education at Masters level. It is the Scottish Government’s understanding that Robert Gordon University have developed a contemporary Specialist Practitioner Qualification in community children's nursing, at Masters level, which will be presented for approval by the Nursing and Midwifery Council at the end of May this year. If approved, the programme will move forward with a provisional starting date of September 2024.

The information requested on how many community children’s nurses are employed by NHS Scotland, broken down by NHS board can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: 05 March 2024 Workforce | Turas Data Intelligence (nhs.scot)

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-26406 on 19 April 2024. 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 final report from the NHS England-commissioned Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (the ‘Cass Review’), chaired by Dr Hiliary Cass, was published on 10 April. The Cass Review did not review or consider clinical services as offered by Health Boards in Scotland.

However, both the Scottish Government and Scottish Health Boards had continued to proactively engage with the Cass Review as it progressed, to share information on improvement work in Scotland; shared learning; best practice; and to understand outputs of the review in England.

The Scottish Government welcomes the final report of the Cass Review, and we are now closely considering its findings at pace. Health Boards will also be considering the content of the report in the context of how this type of healthcare is delivered within Scotland.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.

Decisions on clinical pathways are not for the Scottish Government. These decisions are for clinicians, based on the best evidence available, through the appropriate clinical governance structures.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.

Decisions on clinical pathways are not for the Scottish Government. These decisions are for clinicians, based on the best evidence available, through the appropriate clinical governance structures.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.