Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the impact long delays in call answering times at NHS 24 could have on A&E attendances. NHS 24 is focussed on ensuring that patients receive the correct advice immediately without a requirement to be placed in a queue, in line with what extensive patient engagement has told the Service. Although this means patients may sometimes have to wait longer for their call to be answered, over 95% of calls are closed first time with patients getting appropriate support and advice without any requirement to be placed in a queue for a call back. This not only helps callers with a reduced journey time through NHS 24 but also hastens any onward referral to local services within NHS Boards reducing pressure across the system.

There are significant pressures residing across all areas of the system, including the NHS 24 111 service and, as a result, we have increased funding for the service by over £20m. This is supporting additional recruitment of call handlers and clinicians, including the addition of two new call centres in Dundee and Glasgow to help facilitate the increase in demand generated by the redesign of urgent care programme.

Furthermore, our new Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative programme, supported by £50 million, will support the implementation of a range of measures to reduce A&E waiting times and improve patient experience, including alternatives to hospital-based treatment.

In the face of the substantial increase in demand placed on the service by the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS 24 continues to provide a highly effective, safe triage system to the people of Scotland.

As a result of this increased demand, and changes to service delivery, the Scottish Government increased funding to NHS 24 by over £20m last year for additional recruitment.

This additional funding has supported the additional recruitment of 575 full time equivalent call handlers and 140 full time equivalent clinicians to date, including through the recently established 24/7 mental health hub.

It has also supported the opening of two new NHS 24 call centres in Dundee and Glasgow, which opened in December 2021 and May 2022 respectively.

We continue to work with NHS 24 to support improvement in the performance of the 111 service, including engaging with partners and stakeholders through the national Redesign of Urgent Care programme.

UCAS published acceptance statistics from 9 August for the 2022 Cycle, UCAS does not publish data broken down by local authority area.

Community ownership is an important aim of the Scottish Government, where there are numerous examples of communities thriving after being given the opportunity to own and manage their own assets. This leads to better local outcomes, which focus on local needs.

The proposed community buyout of a portion of Langholm Moor, by The Langholm Initiative is an ambitious project. The group intend to use the land to regenerate the landscape and revitalise the local community through the creation of a nature reserve which will boost local tourism, providing new employment, training and housing opportunities for the local community.

The project is an example of what communities are capable of, given the right support, which is why the Scottish Government, through the Scottish Land Fund, has already awarded the community group a grant of £1m.

The Scottish Government, Scottish Forestry and NatureScot have worked with a range of partners to support and develop the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, including Scottish Land & Estates, RSPB Scotland, and The Southern Uplands Partnership and Scottish Power Renewables.

The Scottish Government has provided grant funding of £146,367.49 to the Project under the LEADER 2014-2020 Programme and £36,988 towards the satellite tracking of the golden eagles. NatureScot has also provided £43,300 funding and is actively involved in supporting all elements of the project work. The project has funding in place until Autumn 2023.

Other sources of public funding include:

Scottish Forestry (FCS)   £32,000

South of Scotland Enterprise £31,300

Scottish Borders Council £1,000

Scottish Government is aware that NHS Dumfries & Galloway has experienced challenges with the delivery of GP services in Dumfries & Galloway including Lockerbie and Moffat.

NHS Dumfries & Galloway is working with the new contractors in Lockerbie and Moffat to stabilise and improve GP services there.

Section 70 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 provides that any interested party can make a complaint to the Scottish Ministers that a responsible body has failed to discharge a statutory duty relating to education.

Following investigation of the complaint, Scottish Ministers may make an order declaring the responsible body to be in default of the duty and requiring them to discharge the duty by a specified date.

Information about the number and outcome of section 70 complaints since 2011 can be found at: Section 70 Complaints and Outcomes: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Scottish Government support for PAS enables community groups across the country access to planning advice on a wide range of matters which may be of concern to them, including wind farm developments.

The experience of Reporters who hold inquiries in relation to planning cases is that they regularly find the evidence given by community groups and other unrepresented groups to be well presented and relevant to the case and is almost always relevant to the Reporter’s considerations. The insight provided by such groups or individuals is often of great assistance to Reporters in gauging the likely acceptability or otherwise of local impacts.

Potential extension of the Waverley line, to Carlisle via Langholm, and other route variations, was appraised as part of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2). Whilst the outcome was that the extension of the line was not included within the 45 draft recommendations, there does remain a path for regional or local rail projects to come forward, and Transport Scotland will consider these subject to a strong business case being developed in accordance with Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) and suitable funding being available. The Scottish Government have committed up to £5 million through the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal to enable regional partners to assess the benefits and challenges of extending the Borders Railway, and continue to work with partners to implement that commitment.

The content of the resource was developed based on a survey of research conducted by Professor of Educational and Social Research at the University of Dundee, Professor Keith Topping.