Chamber and committees

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. The Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities and thyroid conditions are not specifically mentioned in this iteration of the Plan.

However we do recognise that many women are significantly affected by the condition and we are committed to ensuring that people living with hypothyroidism are able to access the best possible support from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care. Information on symptoms and treatments are available at NHS Inform .

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

Under the Animal Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 (the “2006 Act”), Scottish SPCA inspectors have certain powers to investigate relevant offences relating to animals which are suffering and in the control of a person.

The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill contains an enabling power to allow the Scottish Ministers, by way of subordinate legislation, to extend the powers of inspectors authorised under the 2006 Act to investigate relevant offences relating to wild animals, as set out in section 8 of the Bill, should they deem it appropriate to do so in the future.

This is unlikely to include environmental destruction, disturbance or harm to a wild animal as a result of environmental destruction would constitute a wildlife crime and would be investigated as such by Police Scotland.

NHS Boards regularly assess continence patients’ needs, with the assessments undertaken by dedicated Bladder and Bowel Teams or community nursing staff. This ensures that patients’ needs are met, either through treatment or through provision of appropriate containment products. Referrals can also be made by patients’ GPs where necessary, and also by a range of other healthcare professionals including pharmacists, consultants, and care home staff.

Where a patient has been assessed as requiring continence products, these are provided by their local NHS Board’s continence service on prescription. As such, any person that is suffering from incontinence, such as men living with prostate cancer, should seek a referral to their local continence service in order that their incontinence can be assessed, treated where appropriate, or managed through the prescription of continence products.

The Scottish Government has not been made aware of any issues with regard to the disposal of used incontinence products, and has no plans to require that public toilets have incontinence bins installed.

As set out in a letter I sent to Pam Duncan Glancy MSP on 27 June and as covered during portfolio questions in Parliament on 28 June https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-28-06-2023?meeting=15400&iob=131343#orscontributions_M16199E320P809C2508836 I remain committed to working with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers to explore how we can progress a reduction in teachers’ class contact time by ninety minutes per week (from the current contracted figure of 22.5 hours to 21 hours). To help inform this discussion and ensure effective and evidence-informed workforce planning I will be commissioning an external piece of work which will consider and bring together a range of factors, including effective local and national teacher workforce planning, pupil teacher ratios and the projected decline in the number of school-aged children in Scotland.

The identification, assessment and management of people with long-term effects of COVID-19 in Scotland is guided by the recommendations of an evidence-based UK-wide clinical guideline developed by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Royal College of GPs (RCGP). The guideline provides clinical case definitions for ‘Acute COVID-19’, ‘Ongoing symptomatic COVID-19’ and ‘Post-COVID-19 syndrome’, to support the identification and diagnosis of long-term effects of COVID-19.

The guideline was first published on 18 December 2020, was last updated on 11 November 2021 and is being reviewed as new evidence, policy and practice emerges. The guideline can be accessed at https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng188 .

The recommended clinical case definition to identify and diagnose Post-COVID-19 syndrome is signs and symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with COVID-19, continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis. It usually presents with clusters of symptoms, often overlapping, which can fluctuate and change over time and can affect any system in the body. Post-COVID-19 syndrome may be considered before 12 weeks while the possibility of an alternative underlying disease is also being assessed. In addition to the clinical case definitions, the term ‘long COVID’ is commonly used to describe signs and symptoms that continue or develop after acute COVID-19. It includes both ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 (from 4 to 12 weeks) and post-COVID-19 syndrome (12 weeks or more).

The International Classification of Diseases provides a common language that supports health professionals to share standardised information across the world, containing around 17,000 unique codes for injuries, diseases and causes of death.

The World Health Organization made available a diagnostic code for ‘Post COVID-19 Condition’ within the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10 th Revision (ICD-10) in January 2021. Further information can be accessed at https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/updates-3-4-in-relation-to-covid-19-coding-in-icd-10 .

On 11 February 2022, the World Health Organization’s Eleventh Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) came into effect. Post COVID-19 Condition has the code RA02 and is listed in Section 25 ‘International provisional assignment of new diseases of uncertain aetiology and emergency use’.

The Scottish Government recognises the inclusion of Post COVID-19 Condition in the International Classification of Diseases and the importance of coding diagnoses to support a range of processes that require classification of diseases.

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving the quality of life and wellbeing of people with chronic pain. Involving people with lived experience remains a priority to help inform the improvement work we have set out in our Framework for pain management service delivery - implementation plan .

Our plan was developed with extensive engagement with people with chronic pain. The Scottish Government conducted a public consultation where four-fifths of respondents were individuals living with chronic pain. All of their views have informed the actions set out in the plan.

In summer 2022, we commissioned the Lines Between to establish a Pain Management Panel. The panel included a diverse cross-section of people with chronic pain across Scotland. The findings from this report, published in July 2022 , have helped inform the implementation of the plan.

We are continuing to engage with a range of diverse voices of those living with chronic pain across Scotland as we develop and deliver the plan. Officials attended the most recent Cross Party Group for Chronic Pain to request feedback and further engagement sessions with the group are planned. We have also invited our stakeholders, including people with lived experience, to a series of drop in sessions to give their input as we update our Implementation Plan.

The Scottish Government has put a range of measures in place to address the risk of future pandemics. These are informed by learning from experience of the Covid-19 Pandemic about the need to respond differently to non flu pandemics. We continue to maintain stockpiles of PPE and medicines to address a pandemic threat and we are also working with 4 Nations partners to review the countermeasures and capabilities required to address future pandemic threats and ensure our resilience measures remain robust. In Scotland, we have established the Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness to bring together scientists and technical experts to advise the Scottish Government on the future risks from pandemics and how we can be as prepared as it is possible to be for these.

Under the Equality Act 2010, which is reserved to the UK Parliament, employers are required to make reasonable adjustments if health conditions are or are likely to be long lasting and have an impact on an employee’s daily life. This may apply in the case of thyroid disease, however this would depend on the circumstances surrounding each individual case.

The Scottish Government currently invests in a range of initiatives to support people with health conditions to sustain or return to work, including through the NHS delivered Working Health Services Scotland and the Public Health Scotland led Healthy Working Lives resource. They provide advice and support on work related physical and mental health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work practices and workplace safety for employers.

We also recognise that improving access to flexible working is an important means to help people balance work and health conditions, without dropping out of the workplace with the loss of income, experience and skills that this entails. To that end, we have provided a total of £222,000 in 2022-23 to flexible working experts, Flexibility Works to promote flexible working and support employers across Scotland to adopt flexible and family friendly workplaces. A further £86,000 has been committed so far this financial year.

I meet local authority representatives on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of issues which I am responsible for as the Minister for Local Government Empowerment and Planning. The Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council 2023 raised third party rights of appeal with me at a meeting on 11 May. Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council officials met on 30 May 2023 to discuss planning appeal procedures – the matter of third party rights of appeal was briefly raised during that discussion.