Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is currently updating the guidance in light of the comments provided as part of the consultation. Once this has been completed, a meeting of the review group will be convened to discuss the amended draft prior to publication.

The Scottish Government supports the work of the British Council in Scotland and values the contribution Modern Language Assistants, as native speakers, make to the language learning experience of our pupils.

The figures available, and supplied by British Council Scotland, include independent schools and cover the period 2002-2017. Those prior to 2002 are not available. Numbers for the 2017-18 school year are not yet available.

The following table lists NHS facilities which have fully closed in each year since 2007, information on NHS facilities which have closed temporarily is not centrally available.

The services provided from these hospitals, will have been re-provided in an alternative hospital, community or primary care facility and are noted in the answer.

Over the same period, new investment was undertaken in the following clinical facilities:

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-10188 on 2 August 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Microfinance Fund aim is to provide access to affordable business finance for those with viable business propositions but who are unable to obtain finance, either wholly or in part, from mainstream lenders. Responsible lending is at the core of the Fund and individuals need to demonstrate the ability to maintain payments over the period of the loan. To date, the Fund has provided £925,141 of loans creating 131 new jobs and safeguarding 37 existing jobs.

The Scottish Government recognises the challenges those with a low credit rating can face when trying to source finance and is working hard to address this and to promote financial inclusion. That is why our Fairer Scotland Action Plan, published in October 2016, set out a commitment to making affordable credit more easily available. We are working together with Carnegie UK to deliver this commitment through their Affordable Credit Action Group, which has cross-sectoral membership, including from the banking sector, and a remit to deliver Carnegie’s Fairer Scotland Pledge to help Scotland’s not-for-profit affordable credit providers to grow, to reach many more people, building financial capability and improving wellbeing.

The New Medicines Fund (NMF) provides financial support to NHS Boards for End of Life, Orphan and Ultra Orphan medicines which can be accessed by clinicians in a number of ways such as Individual Patient Treatment Requests, Peer Approved Clinical System requests or medicines accepted by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to invest in the NMF on the basis of the operation of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme and these receipts will be directed into the New Medicines Fund in future years, as is currently case.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-06745 on 24 February 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-10195 on 28 July 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Our cancer strategy, ‘Beating Cancer: Ambition and Action’ recognises the need to reduce the variation in survival rates of different types of cancer as much as possible. The strategy is accompanied by £100 million investment, and serves as a blueprint for the future of cancer services in Scotland. We also support the national Quality Performance Indicator programme which aims to drive improvement in the outcomes and survival rates for people with cancer, including those noted by the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce.

In 2014 to help support earlier referral or investigation of patients who may be showing a suspicion of cancer, Healthcare Improvement Scotland updated and published revised Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, which cover a wide range of tumour types. These guidelines should help in the identification of peoplemost likely to have cancer and require specialist assessment. The updated version of the guidelines is available at the following Link: http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/cancer_care_improvement/programme_resources/scottish_referral_guidelines.aspx.

With regard to pancreatic cancer specifically, Scotland is currently the only part of the UK whose government is specifically co-funding research into pancreatic cancer along with a charity.

As part of the £4 million Precision Medicine Ecosystem Investment announced by the First Minister in February 2016, the Scottish Government has made available over £700,000 to support “Precision Panc”, a pan-Scotland study led by Professor Andrew Biankin from the University of Glasgow that uses state of the art techniques to better characterise pancreatic cancer, allowing patients to be recruited to clinical trials efficiently and quickly. In March 2017, Cancer Research UK announced an investment of £10 million to support Precision Panc. This investment will allow the molecular profiling of patients’ tumours, and help to improve our understanding of this tumour type.