Chamber and committees

Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Strategy supersedes the eHealth Strategy 2014-17. The strategy has been developed jointly by the Scottish Government, COSLA and NHSScotland following extensive engagement and independent advice from a panel of UK and international experts and provides a response to the Health and Sports committee inquiry on Technology and Innovation in Health and Social care. The strategy sets out the actions that we will focus on with our delivery partners in order to ensure that the right building blocks are in place for our vision to be realised.

Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Strategy commits to “Deliver the digital capability for citizens to access and update information about their health and wellbeing, including their records and from personal monitoring, and to interact with services”. This is being developed using a person-centred approach to consider how people wish to access digital health and care services. Learning is being taken from a Proof of Concept led by the West of Scotland NHS Boards and will be augmented by further user research in partnership with the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) National Digital Service to inform the development of the National Digital Platform. The Scottish health and care National Digital Platform will ensure that access is available to relevant real-time data and information from health and care records, by those who need it, when they need it, wherever they are, in a secure and safe way."

Scottish Government is committed to providing the necessary digital tools to people when interacting with NHS services. Wi-Fi is available in many NHS facilities in Scotland but no target has been set to ensure access.

The Scottish Government has specifically made £1.085 million available in 2019-20 to assist with the installation of secure practice Wi-Fi and public Wi-Fi in GP practices and other locations used by primary care multi-disciplinary teams. This is an important element of the underlying digital infrastructure required to support services.

As outlined in my answer to question S5W-26267 on 22 November 2019, Scottish Government has committed to provide the digital capability to enable citizens to access and manage their health and care information and interact with services. This capability will be part of a national solution so there is a consistent and seamless approach regardless of NHS board area.

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

Scottish mental health law offers safeguards for patients where compulsory treatment is necessary. The detailed reasons for any change in data are not clear but any increase in compulsory treatment may represent the effects of more people coming forward for treatment and an increased awareness of mental ill health more generally. The majority of people subject to compulsory treatment are on short term rather than long term orders.

Earlier this year, we announced an independent review of mental health legislation in Scotland which will focus in part on compulsion and is currently considering how best to seek and evaluate evidence about the way persons subject to compulsion, under the Mental Health Act, currently receive care and treatment. This will include issues such as the way compulsion has developed since the Act came into force and the tests used to justify compulsion. The review will produce an interim report in May 2020, which will include an overall timeline for the next stage of the review. We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure these orders are used correctly and continue to promote patients’ rights.

Data is available from National Records of Scotland which shows ages of children and young people who have completed suicide. It is not possible to confirm definitely that they were in school, however this provides a reasonable indication of the numbers in school education. Therefore, there are no plans to introduce a policy relating to this recording.

The Scottish Government is committed to deliver the Waiting Times Improvement Plan, and any discussion on future targets will involve the public, clinicians and others, in order to ensure that targets and improvement measures best support patient care.

The Scottish Government is working to accelerate inclusive economic growth across Scotland, including in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency.

Our national Economic Action Plan, launched in October 2018 supports a competitive business environment, including investment in a highly skilled workforce and a diverse economy. A refreshed Action Plan will be launched soon.

The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency benefits from in a range of support for business and economic growth. For example:

Hamilton and Larkhall will benefit directly from our £500 million investment in the Glasgow City Region City Deal, which includes £62m for four community growth areas - including Hamilton and Larkhall - delivering a number of individual education, transport and community infrastructure projects to enhance the lives of the people living in these towns, and beyond.

Scottish Enterprise account manages 145 companies in South Lanarkshire, and in 2018-19 the agency made Regional Selective Assistance offers in the area totalling £938,000, supporting the creation of 106 jobs and safeguarding a further 25, and in the first quarter of 2019-20 the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland delivered 754 Modern Apprenticeship starts in South Lanarkshire, up from 641 starts at the same time last year.

Business Gateway, our national business advice service is delivered by local authorities, and in South Lanarkshire Business Gateway supported 2,046 businesses, 488 new start-ups, and 215 businesses with their growth plans during the last financial year.

Scotland has the most generous package of rates relief anywhere in the UK, and the most recent statistics show that more than half of businesses in South Lanarkshire, where these towns lie, received at least one type of relief. The Small Business Bonus Scheme alone in South Lanarkshire benefitted 4,400 properties and was valued at over £11.9 million - that is money which the Scottish Government has freed up for business investment and development in order to support job creation and retention in the area.

It is the responsibility of individual NHS Boards to identify and provide services that meet the needs of their local population, including support for children and young people with diabetes.

Patients have access to specialist diabetes clinicians and nurses at the point of diagnosis.

Diabetes Specialist Nurses are based in adult and paediatric services in all NHS Boards in Scotland providing ongoing advice and support to patients and carers.

Information on the number of staff employed by the NHS to provide this service broken down by NHS Board is not held centrally.

Information in the format requested is not held centrally.

However, the annual Scottish Diabetes Survey contains data on the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in each year since 2009. The surveys for the last five years can be access at the following link: http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications.aspx?catld=3 .