Chamber and committees

The right to health is a fundamental human right and means the right of everyone to have the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

Menopause care and support is a top priority in the Women’s Health Plan, through which, we are working to improve access to menopause care and treatment for all women in Scotland.

The Women’s Health Plan is underpinned by an intersectional approach which recognises that minority ethnic women and girls can face multiple and often overlapping disadvantages and barriers to accessing good healthcare, including menopause care.

As set out in the Women’s Health Plan, it is important that all health and social care professionals approach people from all cultures with openness and without judgement and are responsive to the individual needs of their patients and community.

Menopause is an important transition in women’s lives, but one that many know little about. It is important that all women are able to make informed choices about their health. The menopause resource on the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform has been translated into five languages, BSL and easy read.

In addition to the work of the Women’s Health Plan, there is a Scottish Government Racialised Health Inequalities in Health & Social Care in Scotland Steering Group developing an action plan to address racism and racialised health inequalities in health and social care.

Public Health Scotland does not hold the information requested to answer this question.

Any future iterations of the Women’s Health Plan will be evidence-based with aims and priorities developed in collaboration with women and girls, our lived experience group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders.

The Scottish Government has provided £80,000 of funding to Talk Lipoedema over the financial years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The funding assisted the development of the Scoping Report on Lipoedema Care in Scotland, providing a welcome insight into Lipoedema services, and has supported Talk Lipoedema to enhance their important work supporting people across Scotland.

We have now launched the new resource on lipoedema on the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform. The new resource includes information on the symptoms, self-management and treatment options for lipoedema as well as sign posting to organisations like ‘Talk Lipoedema’ for more help, advice and peer support.

NHS Scotland does not currently hold information on prescriptions based on patients’ ethnicity.

Through the Women’s Health Plan, we are determined to ensure that all women are able to access the care and support they need for menopause, be that through primary or specialist care. A range of treatments to manage menopause symptoms, including Hormonal Replacement Therapy (HRT), are available on the NHS in Scotland free of charge.

David Lowrie was appointed last year as the interim CEO on a temporary basis. The recruitment process for a permanent Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Rail Holdings will commence in the coming period.

The Scottish Government engages continuously with the UK Government about energy costs in Scotland and the specific difficulties experienced by some Scottish consumers throughout the cost of living crisis. These costs can be even more pronounced for those living in our more remote areas where there may be fewer energy supply options and the climate can be more severe.

We are disappointed that the UK Government’s Spring Budget didn’t deliver an extension to the Energy Bills Support Scheme or any progress on targeting support towards those who need it the most – both of which we have been calling for on a regular basis.

Preparatory work pre-consultation involved gathering, analysing and commissioning academic evidence. We also commissioned projects with Young Scot and the Youth Parliament to ensure that young people’s voices were central to our proposals.

We have not done any preparatory work on implementation as no decisions have been taken on scope or on the type of restrictions that might be taken forward, our next steps depend entirely on the responses to the consultation itself.

NHS Lanarkshire identified that the current performance of the ventilation system within Ward 16 (haematology) does not meet the recommendations of the current Scottish Healthcare Technical Memorandum (SHTM). The health board is currently undertaking a project to upgrade the ventilation system within Ward 16, in line with SHTM requirements. A number of mitigations have been implemented to address the performance of the ventilation system in Ward 16 whilst the works are being developed and clinical teams continue to closely monitor patients with patient safety remaining at the centre of all decisions.

The NHS Forth Valley Assurance Board met for the first time on 1 December 2022 and aims to meet fortnightly. It last met on 23 March 2023, it will next meet on 11 April 2023.

The Assurance Board has previously met on the following dates:

• 1 December 2022
• 13 December 2022
• 10 January 2023
• 24 January 2023
• 7 February 2023
• 22 February 2023
• 9 March 2023

Updates from the Assurance Board, including minutes, and other materials associated with the group, are available on the Scottish Government website: NHS Forth Valley Assurance Board - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The terms of reference are in draft format and will not be finalised and agreed until following the first meeting of the Taskforce. The Scottish Government will proactively publish the agreed terms of reference in due course.

The draft terms of reference sets out its proposed scope on a series of specific issues, though is not intended as a fully inclusive list, as further issues may surface in the context of discussion. Nonetheless, the existing list of identified issues reflect clear themes around Culture and Leadership, Wellbeing, Attraction, Education and Development, and Retention – all in aid of the development of a sustainable workforce that enables the implementation of safe staffing legislation.